Brigitte Attali was breathless and clammy by the time she reached the apartment. She shut the door and leaned against it, trying not to panic. She was dead. Her body was permanently broken and should be in the ground. The only thing keeping it going was the cursed patch that clung to her arm. But what if it stopped working? What if they’d miscalculated the dose? What if the breathlessness she was experiencing wasn’t a symptom of her body adjusting to the profound change in her endocrinal system? What if it was the first sign of her lungs shutting down?
Brigitte bit back a profound sense of hysteria and forced herself to choke down the tears that threatened a deluge. She knew she was being watched. The apartment Echo had arranged for them was rife with surveillance and she would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
She went to the living room table, reached into her holdall and slipped the CSS counter-surveillance device into her palm. She took the device onto the balcony and switched it on. A moment later, it came to life and, as it had done when she’d checked it on their arrival, it identified the location of every device giving off a cellular or radio signal. The 3D image of the apartment looked almost exactly the same as before, only this time, in addition to the cameras and bugs the device had previously located, it showed a new one implanted in her. Brigitte used the device to pinpoint the bug’s location: it was in her leg. She took down her trousers and felt behind her left thigh. She touched the tiny ridges of a sewn wound. They’d implanted a tracking device to monitor her every move.
She leaned against the balcony rail and looked down at the hard pavement far below. How easy it would have been . . . Her eyes drifted up and out towards the bay. Gentle waves lapped the sandy beach where she and Wollerton had stripped to their underwear. There was nothing between her and the wide sea but clear air, but even if there had been cameras on her, Brigitte was beyond caring. She let the tears come and drowned in despair, dejected and broken.