The Passengers(28)
‘Heidi, are you there?’ he yelled. He paused but couldn’t make her out. ‘Heidi, please, talk and tell me you’re okay.’
Without warning, he became distracted by his vehicle decelerating. It had been travelling at a steady 57 miles per hour and now it was approaching the 25 mark. Was their nightmare coming to an end? Had whomever he crossed taken this as far as it was going? It was only when he spotted the red traffic lights ahead that he realised why his car was slowing down. His ordeal wasn’t over yet.
Sam desperately wanted to shout at the top of his voice, ‘I’ve got what you want, now let us go,’ but he refrained. Because there was something about this scenario that felt bigger than him or the lies he’d told.
When the footage on his screen alternated from Victor Patterson’s burning car to all the other Passengers, he spotted her.
‘Heidi,’ he bellowed, determined to be heard above the others. His eyes were locked on her image until, finally, she heard him and spoke. He moved his head towards a speaker to listen carefully until he could make out her voice.
‘Sam!’ she replied. ‘Why’s this happening?’
He hesitated. He would exhaust all avenues before admitting to how he might have gotten them into such a mess. ‘I don’t know, but we have to be strong,’ he said. ‘You and me, we’re in this together.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense. Why is he threatening to kill us?’
Heidi’s despair matched his own. Sam couldn’t recall a time he had last seen his wife so vulnerable – not after the sudden death of her father or the birth of their two children. She was the solid one in their partnership, the rational one, the clear thinker. Whatever was happening to them had knocked her for six. He would do anything to take her fear away.
‘Did you see what he did to that man’s car?’ she continued. ‘He was just … blown up.’
‘We only have the Hacker’s word that he did that. Computer programmes and special effects can make anything look real.’
‘It looked bloody real to me!’
‘We’re not going to die, I promise you.’
‘You can’t promise me anything.’
‘This is someone’s idea of a sick joke and once your police colleagues become involved and see that one of their own is caught up in it, they’ll get us out.’
‘Jesus, Sam, don’t be so bloody na?ve! It doesn’t matter whether I’m in the police or not. Look at what’s happening. Our cars have been hacked and are being controlled by somebody else. If he’s gone to all this effort it’s hardly likely a few harsh words from my sarg is going to make him have a change of heart, is it?’
Sam slumped in his seat and rubbed his hands against his scalp as if it might stimulate his brain into coming up with a way to free them. Locked doors meant he ruled out jumping from the moving car. He had seen one Passenger in her hijab try and fail to kick her way through the reinforced glass. The car’s battery kept topping itself up as it drove over recharging points, so it was unlikely to drain before his arrival at their final destination. And with no Operating System to obey his commands or to allow him to communicate with anyone aside from other Passengers, he was stuck.
He kept repeating one word to himself over and over again – Why? It was the question that had plagued him since the people blackmailing him first appeared in his life six weeks earlier. In some ways it would make sense if they were now behind the hijacking– after all, they had taken grim pleasure in tormenting and taunting him before revealing what they wanted. But in other ways, it was illogical. Twenty minutes before the Hacker’s voice was heard, he had sent them an email informing them he had what they wanted. He had also attached a videogram of it as proof. They had responded with the drop-off instructions – a shopping centre in Milton Keynes. If they kept their end of the bargain, Sam could have his old life back.
So why, before the handover, were they now involving Heidi? If she found out what he’d done, he wouldn’t need to keep quiet. And if they were going to up the ante, they were in for a disappointment because there was nothing left.
The more thought he gave it, the more he realised too many other things about the scenario that weren’t making sense either, like the involvement of his fellow Passengers and the apparent murder of one of them. Was he part of a much wider scam and were they in on it too? Or were they, like him, victims?
More and more he was considering whether he and Heidi had found themselves caught up in something much bigger that had nothing to do with the extortion. And that scared him more than being blackmailed because at least he knew what they wanted.
There was one thing he could be certain about, however. He was not going to end up in a ball of flames like Victor Patterson. If it came down to the choice of husband or wife, they would kill her first.
Otherwise they would never get their hands on the ￡100,000 in cash that was sitting in a holdall behind him.
Chapter 21
Libby couldn’t be sure how many cameras the Hacker had installed to monitor the inquest room, only that one of them was trained on her face and was now filling the largest of the screens.
It was uncomfortable and disconcerting, and while she wasn’t particularly self-conscious, the ultra-high definition screen highlighted her every flaw, pore and skin blemish. It made her want to suck her cheeks in, raise her head to hide her double chin and adjust her posture so she didn’t appear quite so round-shouldered. She looked to the other screens and two news channels were using the same image, and with her full name printed in large letters across the bottom and the words ‘live’ emblazoned across the top.