Page 1 of The Black Trilogy

PITCH BLACK

CHAPTER 1

AS I SPED along the highway, the rain fell harder than the last man I shot with my faithful Walther P88.

Ahead, a fork of lightning lit up the sky, closely followed by the angry growl of thunder. I accelerated around a truck driving slowly, or as normal people would say, sensibly, and kept the pedal flat to the floor. The drive to Dulles International Airport usually took two hours, but at this rate, I’d do it in just over one. Either that or end up wrapping my car around something solid.

At that moment, I didn’t particularly care which.

A bend came up, and the back end of the car broke loose, swinging from side to side in a wild fishtail. I grappled with the steering wheel, knuckles white, and managed to keep the vehicle pointing in the right direction. My Dodge Viper didn’t like the weather any more than I did. Metallic black, with an 8.4-litre V10 engine, it looked mean and sounded meaner.

Not exactly your typical girl’s car.

But, as my husband had pointed out when he handed me the keys on my birthday, “You’re not a normal girl, Diamond.” The nickname he gave me on the night we met had stuck through the years.

My heart ached from missing him. The chains that once bound us together tightened around each ventricle.

Soon the road evened out, and the car settled back into a more-or-less straight line. The highway was almost empty. Only long-distance truck drivers and a few desperate souls crawling along in the slow lane were crazy enough to be out in this storm. Fortunately, all the cops were most likely tucked up in their squad rooms too, munching on donuts and mainlining coffee, far too busy with the important things in life to worry about little old me, merrily barrelling along I-95 at twice the speed limit.

I flicked through the radio stations until I found one playing rock. Bon Jovi belted out “Livin’ on a Prayer,” which seemed quite appropriate given how fast I was driving.

By the time I hit the outskirts of Washington DC, the rain had slackened to a steady drizzle. The road was mirrored with puddles, the rippling reflections of the streetlights twinkling up at me. Just in case a stray cop was hanging around, I slowed down to somewhere near legal as I drove through the city.

I’d kept a careful eye behind me on the way there, and I was confident nobody had tailed me, especially with the speed I was driving. Even so, I made four consecutive right-hand turns to be on the safe side, doubling back on myself and driving through a residential area. Only once I was satisfied I was alone did I make my way back to the main road and continue on to the airport.

The long-term parking lot stretched out before me, and I carried on to the back. I didn’t want my vehicle to stand out, although I appreciated that was wishful thinking with the Viper. Still, it wouldn’t have to remain unspotted for long. I only needed a day or so’s head start to disappear, and I figured it would be a couple of hours before anyone even started looking for me.

I opened the minuscule trunk and climbed out to collect the leather travel bag that lived in there, then threw it on the passenger seat while I slid back into the driver’s side. Once I’d closed the door, I unzipped the outside pocket and pulled out the wallet I’d stashed there several months before.

The car’s interior light bathed me in a soft glow as I dumped the contents into my lap and took a quick inventory. Everything that should have been there was present and correct—a United Kingdom passport and driver’s licence; a matching credit card and a few thousand in cash, split between dollars and sterling; plus the other assorted detritus one normally accumulated. The body of the travel bag held spare clothes, toiletries, a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, and a butterfly knife. Everything I might need for an impromptu weekend away.

I didn’t have all that stuff by luck. The man who trained me spent years stressing the need to be prepared at all times, and I’d taken it to heart. I could have been a Girl Scout, if it wasn’t for the fact that while most little girls were learning the basics of how to cook an egg using a piece of cotton and a safety pin, I was busy learning how to survive in the real world.

He’d also taught me to act like a cold-hearted little robot, and I called on every one of those lessons now.

Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. Just do.

Lock those pesky emotions away.

The passport photo made me look as if I’d just been rolled out of the morgue, and for good reason. Tramping through the jungle in Belize on a survival training exercise never did much for my appearance, and I’d spent a week living off twigs and berries and nasty-tasting wriggly things while trying not to get eaten myself. I’d gone the final forty-eight hours without sleep as the trainers decided to play a fun new game that involved them hunting us like animals. Anyone they caught got treated to a nice trip to a facility that made Guantanamo Bay look like a five-star hotel.

No, I didn’t get caught.

I figured I’d sleep on the plane on the way back, but the pilot went down with food poisoning. That meant I’d ended up flying the thing instead while the pilot alternated between throwing up and pouring coffee into me. I crawled into work for a meeting straight after we landed, and following that, when I was just about to pass out on the sofa in the corner of my office, my assistant walked in with a make-up artist and photographer for another round of passport photos.

All that seemed a lifetime away. Right now, I was barely capable of brushing my teeth, let alone taking on a team of the best special forces the US had to offer.

From the bottom of the bag, I fished out a wig and a fresh pair of coloured contact lenses that matched the ones in the picture. I’d already had a wig on all day, and my head was hot and itchy. I’d have liked nothing more than to fling the thing under a moving car and then climb into the shower to wallow in misery, but I couldn’t allow myself that luxury. Instead, I swapped out the honey blonde bob for something longer in a dull, mousey brown. The fringe tickled my eyebrows. That was going to get old, fast.

I went on autopilot, changing my identity as I had done many times in the past. The only difference was the quake in my hand as I popped the mud-coloured contact lenses out of their blister packs. Even though I had 20:20 vision, I wore a pair of contacts most of the time because, in my line of work, my piercing violet eyes were far too noticeable. Despite all the practice, it took me four tries to get them in, and I bit my lip hard, trying not to scream in frustration. As the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth, I relished the pain. Anything to distract me from my thoughts was welcome.

A pair of wire-rimmed glasses completed the effect. When I looked in the mirror, I bore an uncanny resemblance to the morgue shot, which was both a good and bad thing. Good because it meant I was unlikely to get hauled off going through passport control. Bad because it served to remind me of just how horrific the last nine days had been. Things had started out terrible, then this afternoon, they’d progressed into a nightmare of such epic proportions I wasn’t sure I’d ever wake up.

Or if I even wanted to.

Still, I didn’t have time to sit around basking in self-pity. I needed to get moving.

I fished my three phones out of my handbag and threw them into the glove compartment. Anything relating to my true identity—credit cards, driving licence, my real passport—joined them, as did the gun and knife. Some say it’s liberating to go without a cell phone, but I didn’t feel that. No, I just felt…lost. Sure, I may have had a habit of going through phones faster than a frat party goes through beer, but I normally managed to keep at least one of them with me.

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