“Hello, good afternoon. My name is Jack. I’m currently looking for a property to rent. I’m told you have a flat above the travel agency that may be available. May I speak to somebody about it?”
“Hello, I’m afraid you’ll have to speak to the owner of the shop and they’re out the back at the moment. If you hang on, I’ll get them for you.”
“That’s very good of you. Listen, I’m in the property just below that flat. I’m on the first floor looking at it right now. Do you know if anybody is up there at the moment, so I can take a look at it?”
“No, there’s nobody over there. I’m alone in the shop, and the owner is in the back doing the accounts, so there’s nobody to show you now.”
“Oh, so there’s nobody available today?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I’m sure we can arrange another time. Do you want to leave me your name and number, and I’ll get the owner to call you?”
“No, it’s okay, I have to go shortly anyway. I’ll call them tomorrow to make an appointment. Thanks so much for your help.”
As Jago finished the call, he was already making his way to the stairs. On passing Fi, he whispered, “Keep him quiet, I don’t want him alerting anybody upstairs.”
Fi looked around the room and grabbed a dirty tea towel in the kitchen. She calmly strode over to Marti, grabbed his throat, forcing him to gasp for air, and then thrust the material into his mouth. Once in place, she released her grip. Before stepping out into the stairway to support Jago, she applied another PlastiCuffs to Marti’s bindings, attaching him to the old, bulky radiator.
Jago studied the windows of the upper flat via the MPDs. He waited patiently, his lens passing from one window to the other. Then, there was a movement. It was ever so slight, but a movement nonetheless, combined with a faint sound. Jago tried the door handle but the door was locked. Conscious that Jed and his brother were in possession of claymore mines, he decided to make a forced entry anyway. He fired a couple of rounds in succession, kicked the door open and stepped to one side. There was no blast. Jago speedily went inside, going from room to room, quickly followed by Fi. As soon as he entered the lounge, he saw a loft hatch hanging open in the centre of the room with a chair beneath it, still in place from where Jed had made his escape.
Jago followed, entering the obscurity of the attic space. He shone a small flashlight around but was unable to see anyone. And then he noticed a stack of bricks. He flashed the light further and could see that they had dismantled the brick partition between every house in the row to allow for a clean escape. This meant that Jed could have dropped into any one of a dozen houses along that row and left either through the front or rear entrance. Just as Jago was about to heave himself up into the loft, something caught his eye. He directed the flashlight to the previous arc that he’d made, and there it was — a thin wire, much like fishing wire, trailing alongside an opening in the partition wall. It was either a hoax or the real thing, and Jago wasn’t about to find out. For all he knew, the whole roof could have been wired up to an IED or claymore mine. He aborted his pursuit.
Jago called Abi.
“I’d like you to take control of the cameras surrounding my location. It looks as though Jed Slater has escaped via one of the properties west of here. He could have gone via the front or back. I want footage of everything from ten minutes ago, then continue monitoring the area just in case he’s holed up, waiting for complete darkness.”
“Will do, Boss. I’m on it now. Anything else?”
“Yes, get Bernie over here ASAP. And get him to bring his techie friend too. What’s his name, Leo?”
“Yes, Leo. I’ll pass him your message. He’s with the profiler just now.”
“He can bring her too. It would be good to get her view first hand. I bet she doesn’t get too many actual scenes. Oh, and when they’ve finished checking the IT stuff and the wall of many colours, you’d better let the bomb squad know that we have some C4, detonators and claymores to make safe, along with a ton of mixed ammo. But don’t call them until after Bernie has finished. Oh, and there may also be a string of IEDs in the loft space. You did have them on standby, didn’t you?”
“Yes, they are on standby, but what do you mean, ‘after Bernie has finished’?”
“Yes, call the bomb squad when they’ve finished. We don’t want them compromising any of the information, do we? And it might be a good idea not to tell Bernie about the bomb stuff until he’s finished. I wouldn’t want him to get nervous, he might miss something.”
“Okay, Boss. Whatever you say.”
“Abi, as it’s the 25th of May, has there been anything in the news today? Any event that may be linked?”
“Not that we’ve heard about. Maybe we got to them first?”
“I doubt that. There must be something. I’m going down and taking a video of the wall of information. I’ll send it to you and, while Bernie is getting over here, can you scour the news to cross-reference any names, places et cetera?”
“Send it over, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Jago and Fi returned to the Slaters’ flat.
“Fi, search him and his vehicle for any tracking device and ensure that the locator for his mobile phone is deactivated before you move. Then take him to The Ranch using the usual precautions. I’ll see you back there later.”
Jago entered the dining area and started recording the wall. There must have been an area of four square metres full of data. As he recorded, his attention was drawn to the many scruffy Post-It notes that adorned the wall, most of which contained a hastily-scribbled numeric reference. He mentioned this in the recording. There were also dozens of photographs of places and people, and he studied them for a few moments to see if any were known to him.
Amongst the mass of information were dates, and then on the wall beside a computer monitor was a long list of names with a military service designated beside each one. Some names were highlighted in fluorescent yellow while others not. Ribbons of blue, green, red and black were pinned across the wall connecting specific pieces of information. He found the ‘25th of May’ and followed the ribbons. They led to a photo of someone’s computer monitor in an old wood-panelled office. The letters DA were scribbled in the picture. Jago followed the green ribbon leading to the image of a man that Jago vaguely recognised. More green ribbons emanated from the image. One led to a list of what appeared to be more initials. Some of these had ticks marked next to them. The initials read (ES + MH) - OF - (DD + JB) - OA - TL - CH - WF. Below these initials was a broad red horizontal line under which featured more initials: CPD - AG - IG. Then right at the bottom of the list, in large red letters, were the initials ER.
Jago sent the finished recording to Abi, and then he took a photo of the list of initials. He sent it to Abi before calling her.
“Abi, go secure now. Over.”
“Secure now, Boss. Is everything okay?”
“Humour me, Abi. I’ve just sent you a photo of what appears to be initials. I want you to go through them with me now, based on the personalities that we know. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, I’m looking at them now. Okay, so let’s see. OF would be Orenid Finance, MH would be Mary Harker, and the plus sign would be the mother whose name escapes me. DD is perplexing. I’ll come back to that one. OA has got to be Colonel Owen Atkins.”
Jago waited as Abi analysed the pattern. She was good at analysis and had everything mapped out in her super brain.
“Okay, I think that I have it. DD could be Dr Dean and JB could be his lady friend in the US. Jean … something, I’ll check in a minute. And of course, CPD is Cristóbal Pérez Días, AG is Sir Arthur Green and IG Irene Grimshaw. The others I don’t yet know until I know what connects them all. Mind you, the last one rings a bell. ER.”
There was a deadly silence.
“Oh my god, you don’t mean …? No, it couldn’t be … could it? Boss, it’s not the Queen, is it? I mean it can’t be …”
“It may be, Abi. But
you are not to let on to anyone else. I’m removing this list from view. If anyone asks, you know nothing.”
“Right, Boss. Can I ask, did you know about this before, you know, was this expected?”
“Yes, Abi. Someone high up suspected this. So, we have to move quickly.”
“Will do, Boss. I’m on it now.”
Jago made another brief call before leaving the squalid flat.
“Commander, you were right. We have one; the other has flown. And you need to adopt maximum protection now.”
“Understood, consider it done.”
Jago was leaving the building for the rainy street when Abi called.
“Boss, the letters DA could be Dorian Adler MP. He’s been arrested today on suspicion of accessing child pornography and redirecting European funding. His whole world has just collapsed in front of him.”
“Well, at least he’s alive. Get Bernie and the techie to search for evidence of anything that could indicate a plant. Normally with hacking, information is taken, and I’m sure that the opposite may have occurred here. Some digital information bomb could have been planted.”
“I’ll pass it on right away.”
Chapter 29 – Icing on the Cake
“Right, who’s for coffee?”
It was 04:00 hours and Jago’s turn to make coffee for everyone, but in truth he needed the distraction. He felt that sometimes it was better to absorb information than just let it be for a short while, to give the brain a chance to make sense of things.
He’d just got the coffee machine going and lined up the cups.
“How are you doing, Boss?” asked Bernie. “You haven’t slept for ages.”
“Oh, I’m okay thanks, Bernie, the coffee’s good and he’s still out there. How about you? How are you doing?”
“You know me, Boss. I’m not at the sharp end like you. Mind you, those bombs were a bit hairy today. Remind me to thank you for that someday.” He laughed as he walked away towards the office and Jago smiled to himself.
***
“Look, Marti, we’ve been at this a few hours now, and you know how it goes. But you can only stall for so long. You are implicated in whatever your brother does now, even when you are here with us. You helped plan his actions; you participated willingly.”
Marti stared at the wall ahead of him.
“You know that my boss spoke to your dad, don’t you?”
That drew a reaction. Marti changed his gaze to Dom.
“You got something to say about that, Marti?”
“Leave him out of this. He knows nothing. He’s a good man just getting by. He thinks that we run a successful consulting business.” He was quiet for a moment, then let slip out, “Well, that was the original plan.”
“Was it, Marti? Was the plan to set up in business together?”
Marti sighed. “Yes, that was the plan, and we would have been good at it, too.”
“So, what went wrong?”
“Jed. Jed got sick. You know he’s got PTSD. He attended the treatment for a while and suddenly stopped. I don’t know why. He just stopped. Then after about a month, he started to change. He got moody, more aggressive than usual, and paranoid. Everyone was the enemy. Whenever he stayed at the flat, he’d get nightmares and scream in the night. He’s not a bad person; he’s just sick, really sick.”
“Then for us to help him we need to know where he is. What’s the next phase of the plan, Marti? Come on, you’ve gone this far and you’d be helping your brother.”
Marti fell silent, and Dom waited patiently. The silence was broken by Jago sticking his head in the door.
“Coffee anyone?”
“Yes, Boss. I’d love one. What about you, Marti? Do you fancy a coffee?”
He nodded.
“I’ll stay here a few minutes. You go and get the coffees, they’re all ready in the kitchen.”
Dom stood up, stretched his arms and walked out of the room. Jago leaned against the wall with the wooden dado rail level with his waist. The lower half of the old classroom wall was a dull brown colour while the wall above was light and cream despite the years of neglect.
“Marti, I know this must be hard for you, and I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now. But you can still do the right thing and help us out.”
Jago paused to give Marti time to respond. He didn’t.
“I spoke with your father. He’s very proud of the pair of you, and this news is going to strike him hard. What are you going to say to him? I mean, where do you start? ‘Oh, Dad, I’ve been meaning to tell you that Jed and I have become domestic terrorists’?”
“We are not terrorists!” shouted Marti.
“What are you then, Marti? What are you?”
“We help those in need.”
“Oh, so you’re a pair of Robin Hoods, are you? How do you help those in need? By killing and maiming others?”
“They were the cause of the suffering in the first place.”
“I don’t understand, Marti. How were the old people and the kids responsible for the suffering of others? Explain this to me, Marti, because I am missing something here. It doesn’t make sense.”
“They were casualties necessary to bring pain into the lives of those who have hurt others. Others powerless to fight back, penniless, out of work, their lives destroyed.”
“I don’t understand this, Marti. Let’s try an example. Mary Harker MP. What has she and her fragile ageing mother got to do with this?”
Marti didn’t answer.
Jago sensed that Marti was opening up, so he persisted.
“What have eighty screaming kids under the age of ten and an old retired colonel got to do with this? And the secretary with no hand, what part did she play? Come on, Marti. Join the dots for me.”
“I didn’t know about the kids, you’ve got to believe me. We were only going to scare the colonel, nothing more. We know that he loved his trains and it would affect him. We weren’t going to hurt him, just warn him, that’s all. He was a good commanding officer in the past.”
“Warn him about what exactly, Marti?”
“Jed knew him from old and respected him back then. But he didn’t take kindly to his recent activities as a desk jockey.”
“And the secretary?”
“It wasn’t meant for her. It was meant for that bastard, Dean. He was supposed to be treating Jed for his PTSD and kicked him off of the programme. And then Jed found out that Dean was part of the cause of the pain.”
“What cause, Marti? What was he part of?”
Marti turned away. He’d stopped talking, for now. He realised that he’d said too much. Jago started to leave the room.
“I want a lawyer.”
Jago walked back over to Marti and stood close to him. In a low tone, he replied, “Marti, you mistake us for the police. We’re not the police, and you don’t get a lawyer. In fact, you’ll be lucky if you see the light of day ever again.” Jago turned and left the room, closing the door slowly.
***
“Abi, Bernie, there’s got to be a link between Harker, Dean and Colonel Atkins. See what you can find, and quickly.”
Jago saw that Fi was busy at a computer screen in the corner of the room.
“What’s Fi up to?” he asked Abi. “She’s in a world of her own over there.”
“She hasn’t moved for over an hour. I think she’s onto something. Let’s leave her to concentrate.”
“I can hear you,” Fi said. “For your information, I think that this lowly ex-soldier has found what we’re looking for. And I have found what your computer programs have so far failed to find.”
Jago, Bernie and Abi gathered around.
“This should be good,” said Abi, smiling as she wheeled herself over, before patting Fi on the back.
“Look, I’ve been reading all, and I mean all, the documents relating to the defence reviews and, to cut a long story short, it seems that Harker, Atkins, Dean and Adler all sat on the defence committee when the cuts, err
… I mean restructuring, was being planned. They made the decisions that created redundancies. I mean, that could be the key … the redundancies. Maybe we have two disgruntled ex-employees.”
“I don’t know, Fi,” Bernie piped up. “Disgruntled employees don’t go around blowing people up.”
“They might do if they’re disgruntled ex-military employees that are sick.”
Jago thought for a moment. “But if I recall correctly, didn’t Marti volunteer for redundancy?”
Abi answered, “Yes, he did, he did volunteer. It was Jed who was forced.”
Dom entered the room with steaming hot coffee. “Okay, but what if Jed thinks that Marti, his little brother, was forced into redundancy too? Wouldn’t that just be the icing on the cake?”
“But wait, there’s more. We need to protect the others.” Fi wanted to finish her line of reasoning. “TL is Terence Latham MP; CH is Charles Huthwaite MP; and WF is Major Gen William Frobisher. They will all need protection.”
“Well done, Fi, good job. Haven’t you missed one?”
Fi studied the photograph. She’d concentrated so much on the list of initials that she’d completely missed the huge letters ER below. “You mean ER? No, I didn’t see those initials on any of the committees that I’ve read.”
Shaking their heads, the rest of the team looked at her with disbelief.
“What? What have I missed?”
Bernie spoke first. “Only Her Maj, Fi. She who paid your wages all of those years.”
Fi held her head in her hands. Bernie patted her on the head like a child. “Never mind, Fi, we’ve had a long day, and it is four thirty in the morning.”
“But what about protection for her? Who do we call?”
“It’s been arranged, Fi. Jago did it yesterday. Didn’t you, Boss?”
Jago was walking back with Dom to speak with Marti again.
“Yes, it was arranged yesterday, and I’m sure that Her Majesty will be enjoying a good night’s rest, which is more than can be said for the two extra crews they’ve drafted in to protect her. Why don’t you folks get some shut-eye for a few hours, or at least something to eat. Let’s meet at ten.”
Shades of Loyalty Page 24
