Shades of Loyalty

by Paul Stretton-Stephens

  Pouncing feet first, Fi took her man down to the ground, impacting the top of his back. She’d taken the wind out of her target, who desperately struggled to get to his feet. By this time, Fi was a couple of metres away from him, directing her Glock in the man’s direction.

  “Stay where you are and spread your arms out wide, palms down. Legs straight and apart.”

  The breathless man didn’t respond.

  “Do it now!”

  The target looked up at Fi, his eyes trying to read the person with the gun trained on his head. He said nothing, and slowly complied. She tossed a PlastiCuffs towards the man.

  “Put this on one wrist and then place your hands behind your back.”

  There was no response.

  “Look, don’t make me shoot you. I haven’t got time for this, just put the cuffs on.”

  The response was slow, but it was a response. With his hands behind his back, Fi moved to the man’s right side and knelt down to secure the PlastiCuffs. As he did, the man rapidly rolled towards her, kicking at her legs and upper body, knocking her off balance. He grabbed for Fi’s gun arm, and Fi let rip with repeated jabs into the side of his slim body. But he maintained his grip on Fi’s arm and tugged at her. Both of them rolled a couple of times and the gun fell loose. They grappled on the floor, Fi trying to place her adversary in an arm and leg lock. But the gangly man wriggled free, heading for his drone controls.

  Fi chased him, picking up her weapon and knocking him to the floor from behind, just before he could reach the controls. Now on the floor, he stretched out his right arm to reach the controls and Fi stamped fiercely on it, just below the elbow joint. She dropped onto the screaming man’s back. He was clutching his elbow, desperately trying to relieve himself of the wrenching pain in both his arm and back.

  Fi took advantage and harshly grabbed the left arm, positioned it at his back, applied a PlastiCuffs, and then sharply pulled the right arm behind the man to fully restrain him. This final move met with some resistance and screams of pain. The man appeared to crumble and then he made one last attempt to raise himself up. Fi simply swiped him directly across the back of the head with the butt of her pistol, before finally applying the PlastiCuffs in place. The lanky body lay motionless on the sodden roof.

  Fi called it in. “This is Fi, go secure. Over.”

  “Go ahead, Fi. We’re secure.”

  “I have one IC male who appears to be Marti Slater. I’ll just do a print and facial and send it through for confirmation.”

  Fi tapped the app on her mobile phone and placed the man’s fingers on the screen. She rolled him over and photographed him, then made a short video of him, showing his whole body, clothing and nearby possessions.

  “All done, sending now. Over.”

  “We’ve got it, Fi. Wait, here it is. Confirmed ID as Marti Slater.”

  “Right, I’m bringing him in, but I’ll need a car. You’d better send a bomb squad to the Grimshaw building. Over.”

  “Will do. I’ll call Dom, and you can use his car to bring him in.”

  Fi was rummaging through Marti’s pockets and a small rucksack. She found his wallet, a couple of receipts, a map, a couple of flash drives and some keys belonging to a car, plus other keys, possibly for a building.

  “Hang on, I may have other transport. It looks as though our man here has his vehicle. I’ll just see if that is available. Over.”

  Fi dragged Marti and propped him up against a wall.

  “Look, Marti, it’s over. So, the best thing for you at this time is to cooperate. Where’s your car, van or whatever?”

  Marti stared defiantly at her, remaining silent.

  “Look, I don’t think that you understand what’s going on here. I bet that you think that you’re under arrest, don’t you?”

  Marti looked up with a quizzical look.

  “See, I knew that you thought that I was police. Well, I’ve got news for you, Marti Slater. I’m not the police, and I make up my own rules as I go along. Right now, I need to know what make your vehicle is, and where it is. And you’re going to tell me one way or another. It’s up to you.”

  Marti maintained the cold stare and Fi heaved him towards the roof’s parapet. His long legs tried to strike out, but he was no match for Fi’s strength. He hadn’t counted on a woman being so strong. Despite his best efforts to prevent her, she continued dragging him closer to the edge. Once his head and shoulders were hanging over the edge face down, Fi asked, “What is your vehicle make and where is it parked?” She linked two PlastiCuffs and bound his ankles.

  While Marti lay helpless, Fi jumped onto the small roof and cut down the flag. She cut a length of cord and created a noose, which she placed around Marti’s neck. She attached this to his bent knee bindings and left him face down on the floor.

  “I need an answer. The next move is yours. Whatever you decide, I have no paperwork to fill out, nor reports to file … nothing. If you expire, I’ll just spend more time looking for your car, and you’ll be dead. It doesn’t matter to me whichever way you decide. All I need is for you to make up your mind and tell me your decision.”

  She applied pressure to his lower right leg with her foot, and Marti gasped as the noose tightened.

  She allowed Marti some time to get his breath.

  “Well, what do you say, Marti?”

  Marti spoke softly.

  “It’s windy up here, Marti. I didn’t hear what you said. Repeat it.”

  “It’s a white Ford van. It’s parked at the café on the main road.”

  “There, that’s better,” said Fi, as she dragged him back onto the roof.

  As Fi gathered up the drone controls, she continued to rummage around Marti’s rucksack before depositing them inside. She found some chicken tikka sandwiches in a package with the label ‘St Martin’s Food’ and a couple of cans of drink.

  “Where did you buy these?”

  “Why do you want to know? What does it matter to you?”

  “Oh, I’m just curious. I don’t see chicken tikka sandwiches often, that’s all.”

  Marti didn’t reply.

  Fi continued rummaging and then read the receipt for the food. It was purchased that morning at Dan’s Café and Homemade Food, Acre Lane, Clapham SW2.

  “Where have you been staying, Marti? You must have been keeping your head down somewhere?”

  Marti hung his head in silence.

  “Marti, Marti, Marti … you are not doing yourself any favours. And if you’re feeling it for your brother, don’t. He’s just about to get nabbed too. So we’re all good. You now need to make another decision. Cooperate and maybe you’ll see the light of day someday. Or not, in which case the best scenario for you would be to get topped, because you don’t want to be inside for the rest of your life, do you?”

  Marti listened intently and said nothing.

  Fi called Abi from the privacy of the corner of the wall.

  “Abi, I’ll use Marti’s van. It’s a Ford parked over by the café on the main road here. And he’s not very talkative. I do have a receipt for a shop where he bought some food this morning.” Fi continued to give the details of the shop. “Do you think that you can find anything out from them? They’re bound to have CCTV. Over.”

  “Thanks, Fi. Bernie is accessing the street cams to get the details of the Ford, and I’ll get onto the shop. Oh, hang on, Bernie has checked the van, and it has false plates. Over.”

  ***

  “Hello Dan’s Café, Dan speaking.”

  “Hello, I wonder if you could help me? I was pulling up outside your shop this morning when I was in a small collision with a white Ford van. We exchanged details in the street, and now I can’t read the guy’s writing. You don’t happen to know him, do you? He’s tall, slim, fresh faced, about thirty. He was wearing jeans and a blue jumper and black quilted jacket. Oh, and he was wearing a black beany hat.”

  “Yes, yes, I know who you mean. That’s Marti. He comes in every morning. Different times,
but every morning. I think he lives above one of the shops with his brother. Mind you, I’ve never seen the brother. Marti says that he works away a lot.”

  “Thanks ever so much for this. I’ll try and find him this evening when I finish work.”

  “That’s no problem. I’m glad to help. Oh, hang on a minute, my wife may know where they live. She helped him with his electric key card when they moved in a while back.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Yes, she knows. They live above Benedict’s Travel at Flat 102a.”

  “Thanks, Dan, you’re a lifesaver. Have a good day.”

  “You too. Cheers.”

  Abi called Jago. “Boss, we have an address for the Slaters, can you get over there? Dom can be en route for support.”

  Abi relayed the details in a text message.

  “Thanks, Abi, I’ve got the address, and I’m on my way. You’d better put bomb disposal on standby.”

  “They’ll be pleased. Twice in one day.”

  “Tell Fi to bring Marti Slater to this address and park somewhere close by until I call her.”

  “Will do, Boss.”

  Chapter 28 – The Apartment

  It was 16:00 hours. Traffic was starting to build up on Acre Lane, and it mainly consisted of mothers on the school run.

  Jago parked just beyond the travel agents. He looked up to the window; there were no apparent signs of life. He looked across the street and decided to ring the doorbell of the flat diagonally opposite the target property. It was above the betting shop. A mature female voice answered, and within minutes Jago was upstairs, peering through the net curtains across to Slater’s flat.

  “Do you ever see anybody in that flat over there, Miss er …”

  “Howe, with an e. Teresa. You can call me Tere. And no, I haven’t seen anybody there for days. The only person I see there is a big, tall, lanky fella. He surfaces once in a while and our paths cross on the way to the shop. He’s very quiet and never says boo to a goose. Is he in trouble?”

  “I don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  Jago peered across the road. It was a pre-war three-storey building with the travel agents occupying the ground floor, Slater’s flat on the first floor and another flat on the top floor that seemed to be partially in the attic.

  “Do you know who lives on the upper floor?”

  “Nobody. The textile shop a few doors down the road owns it, and they use it for storage.”

  Jago’s phone rang.

  “Boss, it’s Fi. I’m parked one street away with Slater.”

  “Ask him if his brother should be at home.”

  “Okay, hang on, Boss.”

  Jago could hear Fi in the background.

  “Marti, should your brother be at home right now? I’m asking because we’d rather enter in a civilised way than all guns blazing. It wouldn’t do anybody any good, would it?”

  “No, he shouldn’t be at home, he’s away working at the moment.”

  “Did you get that, Boss?”

  “Yes, I got it. Bring Slater with you, and I’ll meet you at the front door. Give me two minutes.”

  Jago turned to the woman. “Well, Miss Howe, I’m afraid I have to be going. Thank you so much for your hospitality. If I need a statement or anything from you, I know where to find you.”

  “The pleasure was absolutely all mine,” she replied, busily scribbling down her telephone number on a piece of paper which she then thrust into Jago’s hand. “And if you need me for anything, you just give me a call, and I’ll help you as much as I can. And I mean … anything.”

  Jago quickly thanked the woman and left the flat. As he waited for a gap in the traffic to appear to cross the road, he could see Fi guiding Slater towards the door. Jago joined them.

  “Have you got keys, Fi?”

  “Yes, here you are.” She handed Jago the keys and turned to Marti. “Are there any alarms or cameras?”

  “No, no cameras, just an alarm. The code’s 1239 and the keypad’s on the left when you enter.”

  Jago asked Marti, “Will Jed be home? “

  Marti looked Jago straight in the eyes.

  “I don’t know, we’ll just have to wait and see. He comes and goes as he pleases, and I have no way of knowing either way.”

  “Very well. Is there a rear entry or exit?”

  “The only way out of the back is through the windows.”

  “Okay, Marti, I want you to give me a complete description of the building from the moment we get on the other side of this door.”

  Marti spent the next minute explaining the layout as requested.

  Jago, pistol discreetly at the ready, unlocked the front door and quickly pushed it open. His eyes fixed on the top of the stairs, ignoring the lumps of plaster hanging off of the walls and the dust and dirt on the well-worn wooden stairs. He flicked on the light switch, which had no effect whatsoever. Jago led the way slowly up the stairs. He was followed three or four steps behind by Marti, still restrained with his hands tied behind his back. Fi maintained a grip on the restraint with one hand while she held her pistol in the other. She deliberately left the door wide open behind her to provide a rapid exit, should it be needed.

  There was a window at the top of the first flight of stairs, and Jago managed to open it about six inches. He threw out his MPDs and gave them a few seconds to take position at the back of the house. During those few seconds, he fixed the implant into his right eye and tested the signal. He had a complete view of the rear of the property, and one of the MPDs was able to get close to a dirty window through which hardly anything could be seen. At the top of the stairs, they found a turn to the right and more stairs before being confronted by a dark blue wooden door. Jago knocked at the door.

  “Morning, here to read your meters.”

  There was no response. Jago tried again, knocking a little harder.

  “Good morning, I’m here to read your meters. Is anyone home?”

  Again, there was no response.

  Jago selected a key for the mortise lock and chose the Yale key for the lock at about mid-height, then slowly turned and opened them at the same time. The door creaked, losing the element of surprise Jago wanted to give. He quickly pushed the door fully open and entered the first room, pistol at the ready. There was no one home. He moved left and peered into the open bathroom. It was empty. He continued up a couple of steps into an open dining area, adjacent to the open plan kitchen. Apart from the dirt, it was full of boxes, and on the far side of the room, there were two benches providing support for a bank of six computers. The wall to his right was filled with maps, photographs, and Post-It notes — hundreds of them, all shapes, sizes and colours.

  There was a window on the back wall. It was the window that the drone had been trying to peer through earlier. It looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in years. In the right-hand corner of the room was a small passageway leading to the two bedrooms. So far, the flat proved to be unoccupied.

  Fi entered the flat with Marti and they edged their way towards the kitchen, while Jago moved cautiously towards the passageway. Checking the view from his MPDs, all seemed clear from the outside position of the building. If Jed was there, he would be in one of these two rooms. Jago listened for movement. There was no sound, so he tentatively moved forwards to the door of the first room on the left. He slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open. He darted his head forward and back, gaining a quick view of the room and its contents. It was empty with bare wooden floorboards, dark painted walls and a minuscule amount of light coming through the filthy windows. He exited the room, turning left, and listened at one side of the door leading to the final room. Again, there was no sound and Jago turned the doorknob to push the door open. As he did so, he ducked back behind the frame and the protection of the wall. The door flung half open before it hit something on the other side. This room was not empty. He stepped inside to find rows of open boxes.

  There was a familiar scent in the air.
Metal. Brass to be precise. There were rows of boxes full of ammunition and stacks of magazines. There were open-topped crates on the left against the far wall, and two Heckler Koch MP5s were visible. In another lay three claymore mines and half a dozen grenades. The stack of crates in the centre of the room were still sealed. Cardboard boxes were stacked up against the wall behind the door. These looked to contain cables, camera lenses and other small electronic gadgets. But there was no sign of Jed.

  Jago trod carefully, trying to be as quiet as possible. He scanned the walls and floor of the room and stepped out into the passageway, still scanning as he walked. He entered the empty room once again and searched the walls for signs of an opening. It was entirely plausible that there was a false panel in one of the walls or the floor; it wouldn’t be the first one Jago had come across. Then there was a small sound above them.

  Jago directed his MPDs to the top of the house and, through his eye lens, surveyed the windows of the upper floor. He made his way to the dining area and out of the sight of Marti, making a hand signal to Fi to indicate that something was amiss above them. Jago then doubled back, re-entering the room with the ammunition. He carefully examined the cases in the centre of the room. The top of the cases was taller than he was, so he grabbed a chair to examine the highest point and there, among the dust, he saw the scuff of footprints and signs of movement. Above the cases was the ceiling rose and the old-fashioned plaited cord of a ceiling pendant without a bulb. It didn’t help that the decoration in the room was in a dilapidated state. Closer scrutiny revealed that there might be a cleverly disguised escape hatch.

  Jago remembered that Tere Howe had mentioned that the upstairs flat was used for storage by one of the local shops, so he had to be sure it wasn’t just an employee that he’d heard. He looked out the front window and could just make out the fabric shop a few doors away. He made a note of the shop’s name, ‘Fabrics Unlimited’, and searched for their telephone number on his smartphone.