Buying the Virgin novel Chapter 111

CHARLOTTE

Out on the street, amid the stream of traffic, again, still following my general trajectory, I take all the most visible routes. I want to appear to be heading out to my university, but I choose routes that are heavily watched and be-camera’d.

My phone rings, flashing up with my Master’s avatar. I don’t answer, letting it ring off, then when a few seconds later there is the bing of a left message, I tap it onto speakerphone.

As I imagined, my Master is not happy with me. He is containing his temper, but I can hear the suppressed fury in his voice. I smile to myself as he says that, if I am uncomfortable speaking with him, I should phone Michael back.

Think I’ll pass on that… We can talk when this is over….

Guess I’ll not be sitting down for a while….

Outside the City, I join the main highway traffic, watching carefully in my mirrors for any sign of pursuit.

My phone rings again, and again. Repeated bleeps of messages arriving become irritating. I would turn the phone off, but right now, it is fulfilling a valuable function: tracking me, reporting back as to where I am.

I finger the locket I am wearing, another tracer now inserted inside. Perhaps it will be discovered, perhaps not. I have others…

In the rear-view mirror, I see the anticipated ‘action’. A car is gaining on the queue of traffic behind me, weaving between lanes as it draws closer. A series of cars are overtaking me on the outer lane, but two flank me, slightly to the fore and aft, and then slow down, matching my speed, blocking my exit to that lane.

On the inner lane, another car is hanging behind me, blocking the passage of any other vehicles that try to ‘undertake’ me.

I swallow hard. I did this entirely of my own choosing, and now the reality is upon me.

Go for broke.

I must make this look realistic. Slamming my foot down on the gas, I pull away with all the acceleration my little car can muster. She’s sweet and small, and not intended for this treatment. Foot hard to the floor, I swerve to the inside to undertake the car ahead of me, only to find myself blocked by another, slower car, immediately before me. The blocker car behind me immediately pulls up close, tail-gating me; another exit blocked.

Horns blare around me, as ‘normal’ traffic is bullied out of the way. Drivers speed up, pulling away from this obvious trouble spot, doubtless happy to be on a journey elsewhere. In under a minute I am blocked front, back and outside by vehicles. Another pulls up on my inside, blocking my possible exit as we pass a junction.

As the next junction draws close, the inside vehicle withdraws, and I am herded onto the exit.

We’re on a wild route here. In all directions, the roads lead deep into the wilderness. Very few people use this road.

Still being forced along at an uncomfortable speed, we are now some miles off the main highway. The car ahead of me abruptly slows, forcing me to stop.

For reality’s sake, I flick on the central locking, knowing that it won’t last more than a few seconds. Nonetheless, I start violently when a gunshot blows apart my driver’s side door lock. I don’t have to fake the trembling as hands haul me roughly out of my seat, dragging me away from the car.

My keys are snatched away, along with the tracker they carry. One of my captors gets in and speeds away, back the way we came.

“Get her bag. Dump it. And the phone.”

My mobile is turned off and dropped to the ground, stamped on, repeatedly, until it is trash. My bag is flung far, dropping into the undergrowth.

I am hustled into one of the cars on the back seat. No-one speaks to me. Flanked to either side by men who clearly do not mean me well, I can only hope that the plans I laid in preparation are working as intended.

*****

MICHAEL

Richard’s phone rings. “Yes? Hello, Will. Yes?” His face falls. “Right, thanks for letting me know.” He clicks off his phone.

“Will’s got a patrol car out at the spot where the stationary signal is. They’ve found her bag, simply tossed into the scrub. It had one of the tracers in there, stitched into the lining. Her phone was on the ground, smashed to pieces.”

“The car?”

“No sign of it. but he’s got patrol cars following the two sets of diverging trails. I think we can assume one trail is the car, and the other is Charlotte herself.”

“Will those tracers work everywhere?” I ask.

James sucks in his cheeks. “GPS, in theory, should work everywhere there’s an open sky, but it can be blocked. The question is, will it occur to them that she’s wearing tracers. If they get them off her, or block the signal….”

“And what blocks the signal?”

“It doesn’t take much. RF interference sometimes from a computer. Tinfoil will do it, physically blocking the signal. A metal-roofed garage… sometimes even a tinted windscreen; metal incorporated into the glass…. At a push, wet leaves under tree cover can do it.”

We watch the dots crawling along the screens.