Code Red Lipstick, page 15
Jessica managed to get to the lab by steadying herself against the walls. She pulled herself through the door at the back of the lab and slowly went down the stairs on her bottom, stopping and resting every couple of minutes. She stood up and pushed the door. It had already been deactivated and just swung open.
She staggered through the room and peered around the door leading to the loading bay. All the lorries and boxes had gone. The drivers must have already distributed Teenosity across Paris. She ducked back inside and opened the next door, revealing a narrow corridor. A single door was on her right. It could be another storage room.
Something banged. It sounded like a door slamming shut close by. Now she could hear voices. They were getting louder. She looked about. She couldn’t escape or put up much of a fight. She had to get inside the room. She tried the door but this one didn’t automatically open. She dug out the security pass she’d used the previous night. Luckily, Allegra hadn’t bothered to search the back pockets of her jeans. She’d never told Nathan about the pass either, so Allegra hadn’t known to look for it.
Please let it work.
She swiped the bar and the door slid open, revealing darkness. She threw herself inside as two security guards rounded the corner. She pressed her ear to the door as they stomped past. They hadn’t heard her. She looked about. A weak light lit up the room. It was another lab, but this one was small and cramped. The fusty smell reminded her of chemistry lessons back at school. An old man was fast asleep on a camp bed in the corner, a blanket thrown across his thin, frail legs. He had a shock of white hair and his face was crinkled and tortoise-like.
His eyes flew open. They were as bright as fresh cornflowers, contrasting with his skin, which was coarse and heavily lined like old parchment paper. His eyes darted from her to the door as if he were trying to calculate something. He leapt agilely off the bed and dived into the corner, shrouding his face in darkness. She was taken aback. He’d moved quickly for someone so old.
“Who are you?” he said.
“My name’s Jessica—” she began.
“Well, Jessica, you can go straight back to Allegra and tell her the answer’s still no. I won’t do it any more. She’s done her worst and I won’t change my mind. She can’t get anything else out of me.”
She blinked. If she hadn’t seen his face, she could have sworn his voice belonged to a much younger man.
“Allegra doesn’t know I’m here,” she said. “I sneaked past security to try and find my dad. Have you seen him? His name’s Jack Cole. He’s missing.”
The man looked away and didn’t reply.
“Please help me,” she said, edging closer.
He shrank back against the wall.
“I haven’t seen him,” he said, “but I’ve heard the name before.”
“Did Allegra mention him? What did she say? Please try and remember.”
“It doesn’t matter now. It’s too late.”
“What do you mean?” Her heart rattled against her ribcage. She’d come this far; she couldn’t be too late.
His blue eyes bored into her face. “Allegra said he was looking for me but he walked straight into a trap and now he’s paying for snooping around. Apparently he’s a very a sick man.”
She steadied herself against the wall. “Is he still alive?” Her voice sounded thin and reedy, like that of a bird’s. She almost couldn’t bear to hear his answer.
“I think so,” he said, “but probably not for much longer. Allegra can’t risk him getting out of here and talking. She’ll never let him go.”
“Where is he?”
The man shrugged. “Somewhere here, I guess, unless they’ve moved him already.”
“But why was he looking for you? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t know,” he replied, “but it’s possible my mum hired him after I went missing. It’s the sort of practical thing she’d do.”
He emerged from the shadows and sat on the bed, his head in his hands.
“That can’t be right,” she said. “My dad came here to look for Sam Bishop. He’s a thirty-four-year-old nanotechnologist who used to work here. Have you seen him?”
The man looked up and laughed softly. Tears rolled down his face.
“What’s so funny?”
He wiped his eyes on the cuff of his grey, stained shirt. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
He stared deep into her eyes. “I’m Sam Bishop.”
She tried to speak but no words came out.
The man burst out laughing again. “You see! I said you wouldn’t believe me. No one will.” His voice was manic and high-pitched.
“But that’s impossible. You can’t be Sam. I’ve seen the photo. He’s—”
“A young man?”
She nodded.
“I am a young man but now I’m trapped inside the body of an old man.”
She sat on the bed next to him. He was clearly insane. He couldn’t have gone from the age of thirty-four to eighty in the space of over two months. It was a physical impossibility, wasn’t it?
“Allegra told me even if I managed to escape, nobody would ever believe me,” he said. “I’d be declared insane and locked up somewhere. I’m as good as dead already. If I do ever get out, I can’t go home. How can I turn up on my mum’s doorstep looking like this? She’d drop dead of a heart attack.”
She stared at him, shocked. He was deadly serious. She remembered how Lyndon had talked about Sam using nanotechnology to make Teenosity.
“The nanorobots in Teenosity were supposed to halt the ageing process,” she said slowly.
He gave a bitter laugh. “The experiments always went wrong in the final stages for some reason. It was a total disaster.”
Jessica stared at his wrinkles. It was unthinkable. Yet it was the only logical explanation.
“Teenosity did the reverse,” she gasped. “It speeded up ageing.”
“Exactly. When I told Allegra the ageing process was being accelerated, she lost it. Big time. You see, she’d convinced herself there’d be a cure for ageing in her lifetime.”
He sprang to his feet and paced the room.
“She made me work fourteen-hour days to try and find the correct formula. Eventually I’d had enough and told her I was quitting. She demanded my notes, and that’s when I made the biggest mistake of my life. I was stupid.”
He paused and fiddled with a row of test tubes on the counter.
“What did you do?” she said.
“I told her I didn’t make notes. My work was in here.” He turned around and tapped his lined forehead. “I managed to make it out of her suite and get into the lift without being stopped. I hadn’t even bothered to go back to the lab to fetch my bag. I just wanted to get the hell out. I think I’d reached the third floor when Lyndon got in. He stuck a needle in my thigh and I blacked out. When I woke up, I was here.”
“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” Jessica looked down and noticed she’d picked the skin around her nail again. It was bleeding. Had her dad been ambushed like that as he returned to his hotel that night? He’d almost made it back before he was snatched. He could have broken free inside AKSC days later and managed to make his Code Red call.
“That was just the start of it,” Sam said. “Later that night, Allegra told me the plans had changed. I had to continue making the faulty nanorobots. I couldn’t understand it. I told her I wouldn’t, that I was going to the police and I’d have her arrested for assault and imprisonment. She laughed and said if I refused to cooperate, she’d have my mum killed. Everyone knew most of her guards were ex-cons. What else could I do?”
He shivered as he folded his arms across his thin body.
“You had no choice. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I guess not, but it didn’t make it feel any better. I was trapped. A guard had emptied my hotel room. He brought everything to me here, along with some equipment to use during the day. At night, I was escorted back up to the main lab to work. It was the same routine, day in day out, for weeks. A few nights ago I managed to drop a paper swan in the hope someone would see it and realize it belonged to me. I was always making origami.”
“I found it! That’s how I knew Allegra was lying about your disappearance.”
“So it did work.” His face broke into a smile for the first time, making his teeth look unnaturally white and healthy against his skin. “I thought Allegra would come to her senses and realize my work was pointless, but if anything she became even more obsessed. I worked around the clock to produce the nanorobots single-handedly, as she didn’t trust anyone else to help me. Three weeks into my captivity, I tried to escape, but I must have triggered an alarm. Her guards stormed in and I was knocked out and drugged again.”
“And Allegra did this to you?” She shuddered.
“When I woke up, Allegra said it was time to do a proper test. Up until then, I’d been experimenting on single skin cells and nothing more. Allegra said she couldn’t bear animal testing.”
He sat back down on the bed and wept.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said, resting a hand on his shoulder.
He shook it off. “No, I need to. I want people to know what she did to me.”
He took a deep breath before continuing.
“The guards tied me to the bed and Allegra arrived with a test tube of my formula. I begged her not to do it. I explained the damage to a human body would be extreme and irreversible. She laughed and said she hoped it would be. I struggled but there was nothing I could do.”
He closed his eyes and gripped the side of the bed.
“A guard clamped his hand over my nose and forced my head back. Allegra poured the liquid in. I didn’t feel anything at first except panic, but soon the pain was excruciating. It was as if the skin was being peeled off every muscle in my body. I passed out. When I finally woke up, the deterioration had stabilized and I looked like this.”
“I don’t know what to say. It’s so awful.” She tried to focus on the glass bottles on the counter as blood rushed to her head. Had her dad suffered the same fate? There was no way he could survive it with M.S.
“In a way I’m lucky,” Sam continued. “I could easily have died. I’m fit and young so my body was able to withstand the accelerated ageing process without packing up completely. It could have killed someone weaker. Not that Allegra cared. She said I was a successful dummy run. She had five other test subjects lined up. Who they are, I have no idea.”
“Ohmigod. The famous five.”
Tyler. Olinka. Jacey. Darice. Valeriya.
They drank champagne at Emerald’s fiftieth anniversary ball while Allegra stuck to orange juice. She’d kept their photo on the wall as a trophy. A reminder of her crime. She’d poisoned them with Teenosity.
“Forgive me for asking, but who are the famous five?”
“Five supermodels. Allegra met them at a ball in London before Christmas and they all quit modelling shortly afterwards. No one’s seen them in public since. They’re rumoured to have had plastic surgery.”
“They’d need it after this.” Sam shook his head slowly. “But why would Allegra want to hurt them?”
Jessica remembered Allegra’s accusation, the first time they’d met, about her wanting to steal her crown. She seemed to resent giving her a big modelling break.
“Perhaps she was jealous of their success. She got through the VIP cordon at the ball and must have spiked their champagne somehow.”
“It’s certainly possible if she contaminated the whole bottle and poured out five glasses herself,” Sam said. “The liquid’s tasteless and odourless, so the models wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong at first.”
“But why weren’t they rushed to hospital straight away if this is what happened to them?” She gestured to Sam’s wizened face. “It’d have been headline news. Instead, they just vanished.”
He frowned, running a liver-spotted hand through his white hair.
“Allegra must have amended the dosage,” he explained. “She’d have known the amount she gave me was far too drastic for those girls. She’d have been arrested on the spot if they’d collapsed at the ball. People would have known she’d spiked their drinks. But she could have put a tiny drop into the champagne bottle. The deterioration of skin cells would have been a lot slower. It could have taken days to act and the ageing wouldn’t have been as dramatic, particularly if the girls only had a few sips.”
“But it was still enough to ruin their careers and their lives.” It was Jessica’s turn to pace the lab. “Allegra knew Emerald would try and hush the whole thing up instead of drawing attention to their disfigurements. The agency sent them away for plastic surgery in Switzerland before anyone realized what was wrong.”
“That’s why Allegra has to be stopped before she does this to anyone else,” Sam said urgently. “If she catches you here, you could be her next victim. Failing to launch Teenosity has tipped her completely over the edge.”
“But Teenosity is going on sale, from this morning. I saw boxes being loaded on to lorries last night. Allegra’s already distributed Teenosity across Europe in time for the launch today.”
“What?” He jumped to his feet. “That can’t be allowed to happen. Allegra can’t possibly realize the implications—”
“Oh, I realize the implications, Sam. You’re the naïve fool who still hasn’t realized what I’m capable of.”
Allegra stood in the doorway, flanked by guards on either side. Her powdered face was masklike and for once she wasn’t wearing sunglasses. Her blue eyes glittered dangerously.
“I’m insulted you don’t think I know what I’m doing,” Allegra said. “I’ve dreamt about my revenge night after night. I’ve plotted it for weeks, months, years.”
“Revenge for what, exactly?” Jessica demanded. “What has anyone ever done to you?”
Allegra let out a brittle laugh. “Do you have any idea what it was like to be discarded by Emerald all those years ago? I was devastated. I felt so worthless and depressed I couldn’t get out of bed for months.”
She closed her eyes as she tucked her hair behind her ears, revealing huge diamond studs.
“Now all those stupid young girls will get to know what it feels like to be treated like a piece of trash. Why should I age alone when I can have company? Why should I be tortured by staring at gorgeous young faces on the cover of magazines? My magazines? It’s too much to bear.”
“You’re crazy,” Jessica said. “You can’t possibly think you’ll get away with this.”
“But I already have, darling.” Allegra cackled loudly. “Your father couldn’t stop me and neither can you. You both walked into a trap. Did you really think I’d want to employ the girl next door to represent my company? Once you arrived in Paris, it quickly became apparent you’d find a way to snoop around here. It made much more sense to invite you in and get rid of you as well. Two for the price of one. It was just a shame we had to ruin an Alexander McQueen gown in the process.”
Jessica bit her lip. Her instincts were right. Nathan had tried to keep her away from AKSC at first but then the plan changed and he sent her into a trap without any backup and the dodgy eyeshadow palette – a crucial gadget that he knew wouldn’t work.
“In a few weeks’ time, when those silly little girls realize there’s something wrong with the cream, it’ll be too late,” Allegra continued. “There’ll be nothing they can do to reverse the ageing process. They’ll be stuck with their ugly faces for the rest of their lives like Tyler and the others.”
“But you’ll be caught and thrown into prison,” Jessica said. “How is that revenge when you get to spend the rest of your life locked up? You’ll have thrown away everything you’ve ever worked for.”
“Wrong again. Starfish has arranged my new passport, safe passage out of the country and a new identity in exchange for a single vial of the Teenosity formula. It is, after all, unique and extremely valuable.”
She whipped a small metal canister out of her handbag and waved it at Jessica.
“For God’s sake, put it down,” Sam shouted. “If the lid comes off, you’ll release the nanoparticles and infect anyone within fifty metres who inhales them. Give it to me now and this could all be over.”
“I really don’t think so,” Allegra said. “It’s my ticket out of here and Starfish is expecting it.”
“It’s MI6 agent Nathan Hall, isn’t it?” Jessica said tersely. “He’s Starfish.”
“I don’t know his real name and I don’t care.” Allegra smirked as she carefully put the canister back in her handbag. “We weren’t on first-name terms.”
“How’s that even possible?” Jessica asked.
“Starfish is very private – just like me.” She hesitated and glanced over her shoulder. “To be honest, it’s been delightfully cloak and dagger. He used a voice disguiser on the phone as well as go-betweens whenever he needed to get a message to me directly. I’ve never done business like this before.”
Which made perfect sense when she was dealing with a spy – or rather, a double agent.
“How did you manage to find Starfish?”
“He found me,” Allegra replied. “Somehow, don’t ask me how, he knew I’d got Sam and cut me a deal that was too good to turn down. Your father got in the way and made a good fall guy until you interfered.”
“Why are you telling her this?” Lyndon appeared by Allegra’s side, grimacing.
She jumped a little. “What difference does it make now? We have to get rid of her and her father. Starfish said so. It’s part of the deal. We can’t go back on it now, darling.”
