Skypoint

TWENTY-THREE

The darkest time in Toshiko Sato’s life had been the months she had spent in the UNIT cell. There had been no real bed, the toilet had been little more than a hole in the ground, and the food had been some tasteless gruel that had been nutritionally designed to do no more than keep her alive. But the worst part was that she had no hope. No one knew she was there and no one there was interested in her account of why she had stolen the plans for the sonic modulator. She had believed that she would die there.

But Jack had rescued her then and, as she sat bound to the chair in Besnik Lucca’s sumptuous penthouse, she knew that he and the others would do everything they could to do so again. The difference was that back then Jack had been in control. He had had the influence to walk into that UNIT incarceration facility and spring her to work for him. At SkyPoint, Lucca was the man in charge. That meant Jack might need some help.

Lucca’s men had secured her to the chair with plastic cable-ties. They were the same things that the military used to detain prisoners. Thin strips of tough plastic that were less bulky to carry than handcuffs, and did the job better. Once they were tightened up, the only way they could be released was with a knife, and if you struggled against them they cut into your flesh. Lucca’s men were used to this sort of thing – they had secured each of her arms to the chair at her wrist and with another cable-tie over her forearm. Her ankles had also been cable-tied to the chair legs. Like this, she wasn’t going anywhere; wasn’t going to be any help to the others at all.

The one thing that they couldn’t tie up, however, was her mind. And that was all she needed to try and get free.

Lucca and his goons seemed to have lost all interest in her lately – which had been a relief. Lucca had become absorbed in watching the progress of his game on the floors below him. He had brought the images up on the huge television set in the lounge and now lay sprawled on the couch with a remote control flicking between the hidden cameras. But for the glass of champagne in his other hand and the opulent surroundings, he would have looked like just about any other late-night channel grazer looking for something on TV to get them through their insomnia.

He had howled with delight when he saw Gwen demolish the door to the stairs with a hail of bullets, and he had hissed with pantomime fury when Ianto had survived the crashing elevator. But he was completely relaxed, Toshiko noted, utterly confident of his invulnerability – both from the Torchwood team and whatever was also out there stalking the building’s occupants.

Besnik Lucca was, without doubt, a psychopath. He was a man without conscience, whose only drive was personal gratification without any care for the cost to others. A man whose narcissism was such that he believed he was better than anyone, more beautiful, more powerful and – quite definitely – unassailable by anything, even a creature that could walk through walls and reduce you to a pile of cellular crap.

To put it another way, he was mad.

Maybe that could work for her.

The two henchmen had disappeared from the apartment – maybe they were out in the roof garden, smoking. As long as they weren’t in Lucca’s small control room.

That was where he had gone when he turned the power off to the rest of the building. That was where she was going to have to get to, to turn it back on.

They would come after her, of course. But as long as they didn’t get to her for just a couple of minutes… that was all it would take for Jack to realise that the power was back on and to take an elevator to the penthouse floor. Lucca wouldn’t open the doors – as he hadn’t for her until she surrendered her gun – but that wouldn’t be a problem for Jack. He had a gadget that would pop the lock on the elevator as easily as cracking a bottle of beer.

A couple of minutes, maybe less.

Toshiko started to rock the chair. It was big and heavy, an industrial steel frame with a leather seat and back. Stylish, but also somehow a bit like something from a torture chamber. She was only small – it took her a while to work up the momentum to get the chair moving.

Lucca looked away from the TV as she crashed heavily to the floor. He stood up, frowning, and moved slowly towards her. Toshiko watched him come closer, one side of her body hurting with the impact.

Lucca started to shake his head, pitifully. ‘Whatever are you trying to do, Toshiko?’

Toshiko grunted something behind the gag in her mouth, and struggled against the cable-ties. It was just for effect, but it hurt like hell, all the same.

Lucca took the chair and set it straight. He did it easily. He was a strong man.

Toshiko looked into his eyes and said something else behind the gag. Lucca slipped his hands behind her head and released the gag.

‘Now,’ he said patiently, as if talking to a child, ‘what is it you want to say?’

‘Save my friends, please.’

Lucca’s mouth curled. ‘What?’

‘I know what’s out there. The thing that comes through the walls. And they can’t stop it with bullets.’

‘Oh, I know.’ Lucca smiled. He had seen what happened when the tall one dressed like a tailor’s dummy had fired at the creature in the elevator.

‘It will kill them.’

‘That’s the general idea,’ he said.

‘But you could save them,’ she said, anxiously. ‘We could save them. I can save you.’

That intrigued him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m a scientist. I know what that creature is, and I know how we could make your penthouse invulnerable to it.’

‘It is invulnerable. If it hadn’t been it would have come for me before now.’

‘Why would it? There were plenty of people on the lower floors before. But most of them have gone. Yes, it might pick off those that are left and my friends first, but then it’s going to come here, Lucca. And you won’t be able to keep it out without me.’

He looked at her suspiciously. ‘What makes you so clever?’

Toshiko pursed her lips, impatient. ‘Do I have to go through my CV? Would you even understand it?’ she asked.

Lucca regarded her for a full ten seconds without a word then drew something from his pocket. Without taking his eyes off her, he brushed it with his thumb and a long steel blade sprang into his hand. Toshiko couldn’t help but look at the switchblade. The steel was dark and old and its edge was nicked and worn. It looked like it might have come with Lucca when he first escaped his homeland, and she didn’t want to think what it had probably been used for. Lucca watched her and read every thought that went through her mind. He had seen the same reaction – and worse – a thousand times.

‘You are very beautiful, Toshiko,’ he said gently. ‘You shouldn’t try my patience.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want to die, either. That’s why I want to help you.’

Lucca crouched before her, and ran the knife’s edge gently over her arm. She felt the blade pass lightly over her bare skin, the sensation was electric, like a kiss.

‘Suppose I said you could save yourself – and me – but not your friends?’

Her eyes had been following the knife as it caressed her arm; now it paused at the cable-tie over her forearm. She looked at him.

‘I want to live,’ she said.

Lucca looked at her, then kissed her on the lips. It was gentle. Like a lover’s parting. Then he folded the knife away.

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Toshiko,’ he said. ‘But you’re not going to.’