by Tim Heath
Up to that point, though, there had not been anything to go on, as if Robert had just disappeared from the grid. Nigel feared anything was possible and the longer Robert remained hidden the more it proved Robert was indeed the one that he feared the most.
Now Nigel knew it was just a matter of time. He was fairly sure that Robert wasn’t too close, who’d only managed to ruffle a few feathers of some of the people that worked for him — Robert’s encounters with Jessica and Brendan being the only ones that Nigel was aware of. He now expected, however, that this would be Robert’s only possible starting point and Nigel was prepared for such a move.
Having had a head start in his life, as it was now, Nigel Gamble had spent years covering his tracks and hiding himself in a world of riches that meant he had all he ever dreamed about, and much more. But the need to keep a low profile had always meant there needed to be people close enough to him so that he could work through them. They would be the early warning systems for Nigel, and he could be long gone before any trouble actually threatened his own world.
Living on such a vast estate as he did, there had been, over the last decade, a number of attempts by people to get in, in order to try and steal something. Yet with the kind of security in place that Nigel had, there was no way an opportunist would last very long before being detected and then caught. Most of these people were now serving long sentences in some of the toughest prisons around, having either had multiple similar offences on their records already or just having been made to look like they had. Only twice had intruders been shot, and without families, it was Nigel himself who ordered their incineration and all record of their existence deleted.
That night Nigel Gamble was able to sleep a little easier. He would make lots of calls over the next few days to see what had been heard, if anything. He would make enough noise in the process to produce some productive action by all concerned which, he expected, would in the end produce a result. But that would start tomorrow. Now he wanted to rest, tiredness suddenly sitting heavy on him, as if the world’s worries had been laid upon his shoulders alone.
Chapter 13
Robert Sandle, as he had now been calling himself, walked through the busy and cold streets, holding tightly to his jacket, bracing himself from the bitter wind that chilled to the bone. It was dark now, street lamps flooding parts of the pavement with their artificial light. The usual fake green plastic leaves hanging from each post were meant to give the impression that they were trees but in reality only highlighted the fact that nothing living grew any more in that part of the city.
How Robert loathed the area, remembering with fondness the country air and greenery that swamped the house he’d just left, like an ocean swamps a boat. Though the streets were relatively safe, motor accidents aside, the walls and alleys were full of graffiti and none more so than on the building at which he worked, which wasn’t a surprise considering the number of criminals they’d nailed over the years.
It was a pleasant surprise therefore, for a moment as Robert rounded the corner, to see that the building had been completely repainted on the outside since his last visit. Clean fresh green paint and no sign of the horrible graffiti that had existed before. Due to the nature of his job, where blending in was the best you could hope for, the building where he worked did not have any signs hanging on the outside. The building’s integrity was maintained by a steel reinforced main door. Those who knew the code could gain access by using the keypad, but once inside two further doors checked finger prints and vocal tones to make sure only the correct people were allowed in. The graffiti artists would come again, thinking it an empty building with no one watching, but there were always cameras looking on.
Robert walked up to the main door and was startled to see that it stood open. Even more disturbing was the lack of any keypad or personnel as he walked straight through into what once had been a tidy but busy reception area. Something was wrong and only now his heart started racing. He hurried to where his office once had been, going through doors as if they weren’t there, and found himself inside a busy estate agent’s office. Heads turned as he burst through the door and Robert looked around in disbelief.
Before anyone could say anything, he had gone straight back out again, shaking his head in wonder and trying to remain calm, telling himself that there must have been an incident since his last visit and they’d moved locations, as was the protocol. ‘But what if,’ he started thinking to himself. ‘What if my target has changed something? What if the Simon Allen situation has thrown everything around?’ The thought concerned him. He didn’t know what was possible any more, though he knew the dangers he now faced. What he needed most right then was answers. What he needed was to find out the extent of the damage as well as to find where the office now existed, if it even still existed, and take things from there.
It took him several hours of frantic searching before he again picked up the trail and the details of where the office was now located. After all, it wasn’t meant to be a well known fact in regard to its existence and certainly after an incident that must have compromised the Agency’s integrity, those that did know where it was certainly wouldn’t be letting on. Having been in the field for as long as he had, Robert was certainly out of the communication loop so there would have been no way of getting a message to him, alerting him of the changes. He’d longed for such technology but feared its existence would just make him easier to find, so it was better the way it was. The draw back was times like this when he was back and looking for his office which he’d only just found with difficulty, several precious hours already wasted.
The new office location turned out to be only two miles from its old location, which did make sense as the employees were still people and still had the same homes to go back to. The commute was hard enough nowadays without making the entire work force trek to the other side of the city. Two miles was far enough to again build secrecy, with all employees using different shops, cafés and routes into work.
Walking all the way, Robert was pleased to find the building and noticed the obvious signs, at least for him, that it was indeed a top security building. His eyes were well trained to spot all the devices put in place to stop any unwanted visitors, as well as the same secure doors and keypad operated entrance that there had been on the old building.
Robert hung in the shadows for a few minutes, the large bins making an excellent vantage point from which to watch for the right moment. And after five minutes of sitting there in the cold shadows, he spotted his chance. A couple of no doubt low ranking administration staff came wandering round and gossiping, before keying in the code and opening the door, carrying on through and letting the door just close behind them. This wasn’t the procedure, especially so shortly after whatever incident had recently taken place. Timing it perfectly, Robert gave them long enough to get out of sight before quickly grabbing the door as it closed, so that he too could get inside, which he did without anyone else seeing him. Inside there was less security in place than was usual, which he reasoned was because it was still being sorted out since the move. Robert worked out where he needed to go and took the stairs up to the top floor. Just before going through the main doors, Robert spotted a good friend at the other end of the corridor heading for the lifts. Robert shouted after him but he’d got into the waiting lift before he could have heard.
Robert then walked in through the main doors, where a clearly new member to the reception staff, looking pretty in her company uniform, politely but firmly looked up and asked:
“Can I help you, sir?” Robert’s smile was not returned by her but he replied warmly anyway.
“Hello, my field name is Robert Sandle,” he said, realising that she didn’t recognise him and knowing the protocol in such situations was that if the office got moved while an agent was out in the field, the only thing that they would retain would be their field name once they re-entered their old world.
“I’m sorry, sir. I think you are mistaken.”
> “Excuse me?”
“I said, sir, I think you might be in the wrong place. We have no one by the name Robert Sandle working here.” Her eyes flicked to the right, evidence to Robert that she had already alerted the security personnel. Not wanting to get quizzed he backed out, thinking instead to speak to the friend he’d seen, who couldn’t have gone very far.
The receptionist called after him and then shouted for the security but Robert was gone and away, out of the building as fast as he could.
“What’s going on?” he said quietly to himself.
Spotting his friend on the other side of the street, having clearly just left a mobile drinks van with two large cups of something, probably coffee, in his hand, Robert walked over towards him to intercept him. Long before getting to him again Robert knew something was wrong. He was well aware that his friend had spotted him a few seconds ago but his expression hadn’t changed. It was as if they hadn’t known each other for the fifteen years they’d worked together.
“Paul, it’s me!” Robert said, now in front of him. Paul stopped suddenly, as if surprised that a stranger knew his name.
“Can I help you?” he said, slight trepidation evident in his tone. “Paul, what do you mean? It’s me!”
“How do you know my name?”
“What’s happened here, Paul? Why am I being frozen out? Why has the office moved?”
Paul started to look a little concerned for his own safety as if he was talking to someone who was in the process of suffering from some mental breakdown.
“Are you lost, sir? Do you need a doctor?”
Robert looked at him in disbelief. If this was an act, or worse still a joke, Paul was doing a wonderfully convincing job.
“You are Paul Connad, married to Suzie with two kids. You work, as I do, for the Agency and we’ve been colleagues for fifteen years since the first day you walked into the office.”
Paul looked at him with sympathy. Clearly someone was feeding this stranger some information but it was a bad source and only half true. He didn’t want to physically hurt the guy but if he needed to he would have to, especially if he threatened him or kept talking about the Agency.
“Look, my friend,” he said, a little too patronising for Robert’s liking. “I don’t know who you are. Yes, you’ve guessed my wife’s name but I only have one child, so whoever you’ve paid for your information you’d better ask for a refund. And I’ve worked around here, in one of these buildings, all my fifteen years. But, I’m glad to say, they haven’t been with you. Now are you going to let me go and take these coffees back before they get cold or am I going to have to call you a doctor?”
Robert dug deep into his training and backed away, not knowing what was going on but knowing not to push anything at that stage. Maybe Paul knew he was miked or being listened to and was therefore keeping his good friend out of it.
But all too quickly Robert started to fear. What if it had all been changed? What if everything he’d once known was now gone for good and how could he ever know the extent of the damage? It would be hard for him to spot but he needed to know before going back into the field in order to prepare himself for whatever might come next.
Robert walked around the new neighbourhood and before long found an internet café. Even though protocol had changed and for whatever reason he now found himself out of the loop, he should still be able to gain access to the main system from any computer, as the access codes were linked to the individual and not the office, so would still be the same. He wanted to check on the THEDS tracking system, which he’d asked the technical guys to implement and now he hoped to see if it had found anything yet. Robert knew that in time his target would have to emerge again at some point and wanted more than anything to work out his location before his own location was known.
Working through the screens, some classical music playing quietly from a radio in the corner, it was only at that moment that Robert knew something was very wrong. For when he’d searched for the main THEDS program, it simply showed that it didn’t exist, the page just came back as unknown. Doing a wider search using a search engine over the next ten minutes, Robert could find no trace of it anywhere and yet only months before it had been widely discussed common knowledge. Robert started to fear the worst, knowing that now something was definitely up. The waitress brought over his coffee and he paused to drink it, thinking the day’s events through one more time in his head, trying desperately to lay his own fears to one side. Being sure that the technology must still exist out there somewhere, and now going down a dangerous path of logic, he started to expect the worst.
“What if it exists but the name is now different?” he said aloud in a sudden verbalisation of his growing fear. He started scanning through many web pages before finally finding a really old posting that related to a company called Ample Tech. And there in big letters next to a large photograph of a woman was displayed the announcement of the first prototype, the Genesis System, described as the most sophisticated tracking system that had ever been developed. There had been many further developments over the years and Ample Tech proudly talked about how they had used the same technology captured in the Genesis System to revolutionise their entire range. The latest system on sale now, at a massive £950 million a piece, was the Genesis XVII System and its description about what it did, when Robert brought up the page, it was like nothing he’d ever dreamed about before, its capabilities far beyond anything ever imagined.
“Oh hell,” Robert said in alarm to himself. “He’s got THEDS!”
**********
DCI Jack Derry stood up and stretched, happy with himself, due to the fact he’d made some encouraging progress that morning. By the time he left the office for lunch it was already well into the afternoon, the fresh air was inviting and spending some time out in it was most appealing. He decided a drive to an out of town café was in order. He was becoming a more frequent visitor to that particular one. The peace and quiet of the drive as well as the café itself would give him the time alone he needed to fully process all that he’d found.
In one of his many phone calls, Mary Ingham had told him about the takeover that Simon had been looking into for her, which involved the Gambles Holdings Group, though it was in fact the Harman Insurance Company Limited who were the purchasing company. DCI Jack Derry had then read through a lot about HICL and their CEO Brendan Charles, the man he’d only a few weeks back seen on most news channels with the buzz around the purchase of yet another English football team. What had really made Jack smell trouble had been the later confirmation from Mary, who was as shocked as anyone by the findings, that Terry Goldman’s previous employer prior to his time at the Department had indeed been HICL themselves.
Jack’s mood changed after that and all sorts of motives and reasons came to mind for why they might have been behind it all. It certainly made things look very bad now for HICL. Mary had then briefly outlined some of the details that Simon had mentioned to her though she admitted she hadn’t seen or heard what his final conclusions had been. They both could guess, though neither admitted it, that clearly the results had not looked good for HICL.
DCI Jack Derry’s experience told him there was something bigger going on behind the scenes and he could now smell a rat in it all. He started to believe that Terrance Goldman might have been just a body in the process, someone who happened to know too much. There had clearly been a point in his interview with Terrance where he was about to speak. It had been Jack’s decision to stop things at that point and wait for his lawyer to arrive, though before that had happened Terrance was dead. Whether there had been some interference Jack couldn’t prove but the body being destroyed with his apparent say so had all but confirmed the fact that there was something on the body that might otherwise have given some clues away. And now there was this link with Terrance Goldman and his former employers, the very people that his new boss Simon Allen had been investigating. What had Simon Allen found out? Whatever it may have been, Jack was s
ure, had certainly got him killed.
DCI Jack Derry remembered in those brief moments before his death how Terrance had said that he had taken Simon to a meeting that morning. The alley in which Simon’s body had been found was not that far from the HICL building. Was it possible that there had been a meeting? Or was it just what Terrance wanted people to believe and he had only taken Simon there to kill him? But why would he have done that had it not been the involvement of HICL that made the situation difficult?
Jack finished up his food, having got as far as he could in his mind without further evidence, and headed back to the station, quite certain now that he had grounds for a search warrant and certainly a case to build against HICL and especially Brendan Charles. As he pulled away from the car park onto the quiet road he put a call into the station requesting a search warrant be issued, ready for his return, for HICL and an arrest warrant be made out for Brendan Charles.
Having said the name Brendan Charles, it was only about fifteen minutes later that Nigel Gamble heard the whole phone call, the new Genesis System producing results straight away.
**********
Robert Sandle had done enough fresh research to fear the worst. Having learned that his target now controlled what once had been called THEDS but which had been renamed The Genesis System, Robert was able to track down a telephone that couldn’t be traced, as it would bounce the locater ID signal around the world so many times that all anyone would be able to hear was what was said. Knowing that this was now the best he could hope for, Robert did start to realise that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for his target to actually hear what he was saying.
The Genesis System had been first used, much ahead of time, by Ample Tech, which at least gave Robert a further link to his target. Clearly not likely to be anyone obviously linked to the firm itself, Robert knew at least that his target had access to the firm and that knowledge alone would help him track him more easily. Robert would soon be able to research exactly who was who in the company and now realised that he too had been given a big head start. Picking up the new telephone he’d just purchased from one of the few high street outlets that still remained, Robert hailed a cab and gave the driver the address to which he was heading, before sitting back and trying to figure out how the new telephone worked.
