Chapter 14: Me and My Shadow
Stoker was Jason’s new best mate.
Jason had been given the bunk above his by Dreadlock, evicting a drowsy Lewis, who was sent to sleep in the other bunkroom. Each room had three bunk-beds, with two elites in each room. The bunkrooms were either side of the corridor, at the opposite end of the complex to the kitchen, with a bathroom next door to each.
If Jason had expected some privacy for his morning shower, he was mistaken. As the new boy, he had to take the last shower, and the water was ice-cold. Stoker stood outside for the whole two minutes, humming some jaunty tune that Jason vaguely recognised but couldn’t quite place.
At breakfast, he had a spot at a table with Stoker and Lewis, with cereal and toast on offer alongside a large mug of tea.
‘The Governor’s trying to bring in chickens,’ Lewis said.
‘He can do that?’ Jason asked incredulously.
‘He can ask,’ Stoker said.
Jason wanted to ask about the Governor, but he had no idea where to begin. It seemed that Martin held a respected position here and Jason doubted he had come by it by default. How had he reached the position of ‘Governor’? Did his elites keep him there, or was it reputation alone? How did this place work anyway?
‘What’s the plan for today then?’ he asked.
‘Lewis has to work on the Project,’ Stoker said. ‘I’m on gardening duty. You’re welcome to come out, see how you like it. Though the kitchen is your main thing says the Governor – lunch, dinner, all that. Keeping it tidy too.’
‘What’s “the Project”?’
‘Need-to-know,’ Stoker said quickly, before Lewis could answer.
Lewis shot him a look of disbelief, but then just shook his head. Jason was stunned. Lewis Jones, not putting up a fight? Just accepting someone else’s word without an argument? Jason had scrapped with him for every victory, physically more often than not. Then again, they had both changed, hadn’t they? Older, if not wiser, and not best mates anymore.
People were starting to move, the clock coming up to seven. A dark South Asian man came up to their table, with a milk-white teenager hovering by his elbow.
‘You ready, Lewis?’
‘I am,’ he said, getting up from the table. ‘This is Jay Bird, by the way – meet Roshan and Pansy. My Project mates.’
They nodded their hellos before Lewis left the mess room with them, waving over his shoulder. Two elites followed him out, but Dreadlock stayed behind. Jason figured him for the Governor’s right-hand, the one keeping everyone in line. There weren’t any screws in here but the prisoners seemed to have taken on that role anyway. Perhaps the familiarity was comforting.
‘Where’s Joe now?’
‘Reckons he’s got flu,’ laughed a man Jason vaguely recognised.
‘I’ll turf him out. Stoker, don’t lose your shadow. Anchor, Gareth – get stuck into the laundry until it’s light enough to see out.’
The grumbling from Anchor and Gareth was par for the course, but it seemed good-natured enough. Stoker, however, didn’t seem down with the plan. His mouth formed an unhappy line and he followed Dreadlock down the corridor. Jason curiously followed them down the windowless corridor, taking note of the store rooms this time, one each side of the corridor to the exit. He'd spotted the laundry room next to the kitchen yesterday evening, and another room opposite. That must be where the Governor was lurking.
‘Why are you coming?’ Dreadlock asked without turning round.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘We’re having a nice chat.’
‘Oh, “nice”, is it?’
The tension was high between them and Jason kept his distance. Did Dreadlock and Stoker resent being out here with the blokes not good enough for this mysterious “Project”? Maybe they had beef from somewhere in the past. Jason knew all about that.
Dreadlock barged in to the bunkroom on the left, the one Lewis had been moved to last night. The room was a mirror of the one on the opposite side, with bunk-beds against each wall except the one holding the door.
The bundle huddled in the sleeping bag was on the top bunk of the beds on the right side, the same bunk Jason occupied in the opposite room. He thought the person inside was shaking, the tremors increasing as Dreadlock marched up to him and yanked open the zip.
‘Morning Joe. Not working today then?’
‘Dread…Dread, I’m dying.’
‘You are not dying. Get up.’
‘I’ve been poisoned, Dread. Whoever did for Mole, he’s done for me now.’
‘Like fuck you’ve been poisoned. Get up, Joe.’
‘Dreadlock, mate,’ Stoker said, surprisingly softly-spoken. ‘Do you think we should get him checked out? He looks a bit green.’
‘It’s fucking nothing, Stoker. He doesn’t need your tender loving care.’
‘Dread—’
‘Get out or your number’s up.’
Stoker held up his hands and turned his back on the scene, jaw clenched.
‘Come on, Jay Bird – Dreadlock is going to be “nice”.’
Jason wanted to stop – protest. What was this Dreadlock guy going to do to Joe? What information did Joe have about Mole’s death? Had he been wrong about the drowning, and it was really poison? Was the murderer working on his second victim?
But his feet were already moving, carrying him away from the bunkroom. His instincts told him to get out of there, to follow the order, to stay in line. The old prison vice was starting to squeeze again, penning in any stray thought until it fitted inside the eat-sleep-work life that he’d been trained to embrace. If they’d pulled randomers off the street, this experiment would never have worked. But they picked prisoners, men accustomed to small spaces, tight routines, and mindless tasks. They picked them to be dangerous but docile.
He let the door fall closed on the first cry from Joe and tried not to feel like a coward.
Chapter 15: Just Jammin’
Cerys waited until dawn before deciding that Amy wasn’t coming back.
She shook off the blanket and boiled water for coffee in the tiny kitchenette, skills honed by years of caravanning in Tenby with her mam and Jason. As the steam started to rise from the surface of the water, she tried to think through the sleep-deprived fog that had settled on her brain.
She had been sent away, as if she wasn’t of any interest to them. She’d heard one of the armed men receive a radio message, but hadn’t caught anything more than ‘Let the blonde one go’. She had thought about fighting her way out, but they had guns and she had left her death wish in her teenage years. She wasn’t sure she could get herself out, let alone Amy.
And then she’d realised what those words meant. It was a strange thing to say, wasn’t it? Not ‘Let the driver go’, as if she was dropping off a delivery or acting as a taxi service. Also, it was dark – the guard had squinted at her to make sure she was indeed ‘the blonde one’. What kind of camera system had full-colour night vision?
Unless the person behind the camera had recognised her. Who did they know who worked for a shady organisation that liked to fuck around with people?
Cerys should’ve seen this coming. If you fall back into your ex’s bed, you should at least check out what horror-of-the-week they’re committing. Owain said he was going away for a while, but she didn’t think he meant into some creepy underground bunker to experiment on prisoners. That was a new low even for him. She couldn’t believe she kept going back to him, kept hoping he was a decent person underneath all the shit.
The last time they'd been together, when he said he was going away on assignment, she'd told him that Jason would be delighted and that she definitely wouldn’t miss him. He'd said nothing, and she'd left his bed and got dressed, leaving without either of them saying anything more than a muttered ‘see you around’. It seemed she woul
dn’t have time to miss him anyway.
She'd still been reluctant to leave Amy, but there was nothing she could do. Returning to her caravan, she'd waited out the night, running through possible options. She'd tried Owain’s phone, but it was out of service. Unsurprising if he was in that underground den. She'd fired off an email to his personal account – ‘Call me sometime.’ If he had access to his email, he would know she meant ‘Call me right fucking now’. However, that was also unlikely in a work environment as tightly-controlled as the NCA’s.
One option was to leave the whole thing alone. She had done her part, escorting Amy to a position from which she could monitor Jason. If Owain was in there with her, he would take care of them both, to the best of his ability. She honestly believed that of him, if nothing else. Her work here was done. She could go back to work, to the career she had worked so hard to grasp and keep.
Or she could keep sticking her nose in until she knew exactly where Jason and Amy and Owain were, and had made sure they were all playing nicely – and then she could go back to work.
It wasn’t really a choice at all, put like that, so Cerys settled up at the caravan site and headed back towards Cardiff. On the drive back, she thought about who might know the local area well enough to give her some insights. The Ministry of Defence had a huge presence in Mid and South Wales and it made more sense for this to be one of their retired installations than a purpose-built torture chamber.
Bryn had a vast knowledge of local affairs, but his knowledge was mostly confined to Cardiff and the history of his lifetime. She needed someone outdoorsy, someone who felt at home outside the city, maybe even knew a bit of local history. She was suddenly reminded of traipsing across the Brecon Beacons, looking for a body dump and finding only deer – with Catriona Aitken’s state-of-the-art equipment.
She pulled over and checked her messages. She'd never been to Catriona’s place but Gwen, their mother, had insisted on sending every one of ‘Jason’s little friends’ a Christmas card, and so Cerys had easily got hold of Catriona’s address. She sent Catriona a quick text to let her know she was popping over before work, then headed for her place in Caerphilly.
The town was just north of Cardiff, separated from the city by a mere mountain. Cerys’ trip through the one-way system took her past the impressive castle and out the other side of town, where she stopped in front of an unassuming house in a cul-de-sac. It had seen better days, but there was something pleasantly 1970s about it, and Cerys was reminded of her own home as she approached the door to knock.
‘We don’t have salesmen here!’ a man’s voice shouted through the door, gruff and irate.
‘I’m here to see Catriona,’ Cerys replied.
‘What do you want with my Cat? Buzz off. You boys are all the same. I try to tell her.’
Cerys made a point of ruffling out her helmet hair.
‘We work together, Mr…uh, Mr Aitken. Could you just call her?’
‘Work together? What, down at the bakery? There are no young men down at the bakery. Have you been snooping around there? Hoping for the leavings?’
‘Dad, get out of the way.’
The door finally opened, with Catriona half-in her uniform, leaning around an old man with grey hair and a suspicious expression on his face.
‘Oh, you’re one of those lesbians, are you? Didn’t know we had them down the bakery neither.’
‘Leave it, Dad. Cerys and I need to…well, we need to work on a project, before…before school. Mrs Thomas will be here soon.’
‘I hate Mrs Thomas,’ he grumbled. ‘She doesn’t clean like your mother.’
Cerys stepped inside and realised nothing had changed here since the 1970s. She followed Catriona down the hallway, as her father shuffled into the kitchen, still grumbling.
‘You’ll be in your room, will you?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
Catriona went upstairs and Cerys followed her. There were photographs of Catriona through her school years, but nothing after. As if time had stopped when she was just fifteen. However, the top floor of the house was a completely different place. Fresh paint, photographs from university, from work parties, from the ramblers’ society. Aside from the bathroom, there were three bedrooms and two of the doors were open.
Catriona led her into a den of sorts, with a widescreen TV, gaming consoles, and a desk housing pieces of a computer. She settled herself on the sofa and gestured for Cerys to do the same.
‘I guess you didn’t get my message.’
Cerys pulled out her phone to check, but Catriona just kept on talking.
‘It just upsets him, that’s all. New people, new things. He’ll have forgotten all about it by this afternoon, but that’s not the point. He’ll be a nightmare for Mrs Thomas now.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Cerys said, unsure what else she was meant to say.
‘You’re not the first,’ she said, matter-of-factly. ‘Anyway, what’s gone wrong?’
‘We lost Jason’s tracking device and Amy walked into an underground bunker surrounded by armed guards.’ She paused for a second, before continuing: ‘Owain’s probably in there too. Jury’s out on whether that’s better or worse.’
Catriona pulled a face. She was one of the few people who had been more screwed over by Owain Jenkins than Cerys, losing her dream job in South Wales Police’s Cyber Crime department when Owain defected to the National Crime Agency.
‘They’re probably using a jammer to block GPS signals. They'd probably also cover mobile phone communication. That’s what I would do – if it were legal, which it’s not.’
‘I really doubt they care, Cat.’
‘Don’t.’ The word was harsh, bitten out. ‘It’s Catriona, okay?’
‘Okay. So, how do we get around it?’
Cerys could sense Catriona’s relief that they were moving on, that she wasn’t pushing it. She'd been an expert at rubbing raw spots, probing at them to find weaknesses, to bring people down. To protect her own closely-guarded wounds. Her instructors said it was a gift. It was now telling her to stay clear if she wanted to be Catriona’s friend –and she did. She liked having friends she didn’t have to beat down.
‘We don’t,’ Catriona said. ‘The only way to disrupt the jammer is at the source. Amy might be able to do it, if she knows what she’s looking for and has access to the device. I doubt Owain’s going to let her anywhere near it, though. He’s a controlling bastard, that man. No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Cerys said, evenly.
Cerys had never considered Owain controlling, but then she'd never seen him at work. Part of what exasperated him about her was not being able to pin her down – to rely on her, as he put it. Cerys hadn’t been looking to be reliable, to encourage dependence. She already had her mam in her life. That was enough smothering love.
‘Cat! You’ll be late for the bus!’
‘I’m getting a lift, Dad,’ Catriona shouted back.
‘Not on that bike, you’re not!’
Catriona stood up and irritably slammed the door, like the teenager she was pretending to be.
‘What about if we didn’t want to get around it?’ Cerys said slowly. ‘What if we just wanted to find it?’
Catriona’s face changed from irritation to excitement in an instant. ‘Yes! Follow the noise! If we can track the edges of the jamming signal, we can guess at its centre.’
Catriona picked up a box of what appeared to Cerys to be metallic junk and pulled out a piece of circuitry.
‘I think I can put something together. Give me a day? After work. Is that all right? We can go tonight.’
Cerys grinned. She was so glad this smart woman was on their side.
‘Tonight.’
Chapter 16: No One’s Driving This Train
Amy was woken at 5am by six angry security guys all wanting access to their lockers, and again
at 6am by six tetchy surveillance agents. She regretted her life choices.
Stuck at the back of the queue for the shower, she observed that there was an absence of casual chat, which suited her temperament entirely but was useless for finding anything out. She grabbed a couple of pieces of toast from the canteen at the opposite end of the bunker, before making her way to the Eye Room to start her shift bang on eight o’clock.
Owain was there already, wearing the same clothes, as if he hadn’t gone to bed at all. Even she knew that was a bad look. Jason’s policing of the wash basket stopped her wearing the same cardigan every day for a fortnight, but she hadn’t truly understood his objections until now. The other agents were all subtly veering away from Owain, spending a little too long looking at his clothes, the slight slump of his shoulders.
The Eye Day shift took their places, while Amy hovered awkwardly near the door in her one off-white top and black jeans. Without turning round, Owain beckoned her forward to his standing desk at the back.
‘Agent Haas has been informed,’ he murmured. ‘I need you to provide oversight of this room today.’
She opened her mouth to panic at him, to tell him she had literally no idea how to oversee a room – any room, really, but particularly this room full of smart people with superior technology and their very own Stanford experiment. Then, she took a deep breath and remembered she was an NCA agent, she oversaw intelligence gathering for a living, and she could adapt to working in a room like this.
A little thing like this didn’t threaten to break her anymore. Not if she could just keep breathing. Fake it ‘til you make it.
‘Of course, Agent Jenkins,’ she said, her voice taut but controlled.
‘Your access has been extended.’ He gestured at her laptop. ‘I’ll be in my office.’
He left the room without waiting for a response from her, leaving her in charge of the show. As she booted up her laptop, she heard someone on the right say, ‘He’ll be in bed, more like’.
She felt a tension fill her shoulders, but she said nothing. This was the part she really had no idea how to handle – the management of people. She had never operated as a handler in the NCA, only as their source of information and technological fixes. She was technically the boss of Jason, but he usually managed himself and he never made petty comments about his co-workers – at least, none she didn’t agree with.
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