Dark Shadows
Page 30
‘The world’s on fire,’ I said. ‘Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually, as well. But the darkest nights produce the brightest stars.’
‘Well, there’s no star shining for Klein anymore.’ Lee grinned as he finished typing and sat back. All four screens arranged in an arc on the desk had the same type of code on them now. ‘Okay. We’re ready.’ He looked through the glass walls into the outer office. All his team had eyes on him. He held his forefinger up in the air to them, then turned his head to me. ‘Do you want to do the honours?’
‘What do I need to do?’
‘Just hit the enter key.’
I reached over, took an energising breath, and let it out. I pressed the button. The screens went wild, code flashing past at lightning speed.
Lee nodded at his team, and a clattering of simultaneous fingers hitting keys filled the air.
Chapter 61
Detective Becky Harris
I sat in my kitchen next to Warren, my laptop open in front of us. So far, we’d divided our time between watching the screen, the time, and swigging a bottle of wine. My stomach churned with anxiety as I wondered for the hundredth time if we could all really pull this off and what the consequences would be if we did.
I glanced at the clock on the bottom of the screen. Just gone 6.45 p.m., and we’d been waiting nervously for over an hour.
‘Do you think something’s gone wrong?’ I jigged my leg up and down, a ball of nervous energy. ‘Maybe they didn’t manage to set it up properly.’
‘Be patient. They said 7.00 p.m.’
I necked some more wine.
‘Glad I’m not in uniform anymore,’ Warren said. ‘Public order problems will be kicking off everywhere after this.’
‘Sutherby’s going to know it was me.’
‘Deny all knowledge. He can’t prove a thing. And besides, how would you know a hacker of this calibre, capable of doing what they’re about to do?’
‘I don’t know. How would you?’ I turned to face him.
He gave me a smile that had ‘touché’ written all over it.
‘What if something happens to Sutherby?’ I asked. ‘He’s already been threatened.’
‘I think they’ll be way too busy cleaning up their own shit and watching their own backs to go after him. I doubt any of those involved in the nanochip will be left alive to talk. They’ll need scapegoats now, and I’m pretty sure they’ll be cleaning up loose ends in-house with a few more suicides or accidents.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ I took another big gulp of wine.
He patted my arm. ‘You had no other choice. The truth never stays hidden forever.’
I watched the seconds onscreen tick painfully slowly by.
6.46.
6.47.
I topped up our wine glasses then swallowed another mouthful as my stomach churned.
6.58.
At 7.00 p.m., the room filled with a cacophony of alerts. My laptop screen beeped as a message popped up. Both our phones pinged with emails and text messages.
I read through the detailed exposé on the laptop as Warren opened the email on his phone. For a few minutes, neither of us spoke, our eyes glued to the pages, transfixed by all the information we were reading that told the world what all the major players involved had been up to.
We looked at each other, grinning manically before slapping our palms together in a high five. Then we erupted into hysterical laughter until our eyes watered and our stomachs hurt.
Was it justice? It was too early to say. At that moment, I wasn’t even sure what justice was anymore. Maybe the whole system wasn’t broken at all; it was purposely designed to be that way. But we’d done all we could to blow the whistle with our hands not just tied, but handcuffed behind our backs and a gun pointed at our heads.
Whatever happened next was up to the public.
Chapter 62
Mr White
6.30 p.m.
Nathan White sat on the sagging bed in the hotel room. His gaze was on the shitty décor, but he was too busy making plans in his head to notice the peeling wallpaper and chipped wooden chair.
He’d done a deal with the Russians in the end. In a few minutes, he’d hand over all the data he’d taken from Regen Logistix, along with the recreated files Klein had compiled before Glover had killed him. In just a few minutes, White would be rich and walking away from his old life.
He had several fake passports, but he wasn’t going to leave the country via an airport. His phone had been left at home. No way was he going to let them trace him through something as simple as that. He had a car with cloned plates that he’d drive through the Channel Tunnel to France, where he’d buy another car and then drive to Madrid, before taking a flight to South America. That was where he’d end up eventually, to live out the rest of his short life in a nice beachfront villa, knowing his daughter would be well taken care of with an anonymous offshore account he’d set up for her.
Sweat pricked at his forehead. He stood and opened the window to get rid of the humid heat. He glanced down into the garden area behind the hotel. If it could be called a garden. It was just a patch of grass that was scorched and dry from the unseasonably warm weather and a moss-covered patioed terrace. The place was a dump, which was exactly why White had chosen it. The only people who came here were salesmen whose companies were too tight to pay out for anything nice and hookers renting by the hour. No one who’d pay much attention to him.
White licked his lips. His throat was dry, and he wanted a scotch, but he needed to keep a clear head.
A knock sounded at the door.
White peered through the spy hole. He’d never met the front man who was going to do the deal on the Russians’ behalf, but he’d been apprised of what he looked like, what he’d be wearing. He took in the guy’s face, his black combat trousers, grey shirt, and black baseball cap.
‘Who is it?’ White called out.
The man standing there looked full on at the spy hole, knowing White was watching him. ‘It’s Dominic. I’ve got the accounts you need for your presentation tomorrow.’
‘You’re late.’
‘I got held up in traffic. The M25’s a nightmare at this time.’
White grinned. The pre-agreed code words were complete. He opened the door and stepped aside to let the man inside, eyeing the holdall that contained a percentage of the cash for the trade, before closing the door behind him.
Dominic walked into the room and glanced around the interior before putting the holdall on the table in the corner of the room. He turned to White. ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. There’s one million dollars in cash in the bag. The rest will be an electronic wire transfer, as requested.’
White bent down, slid his own briefcase out from under the bed, and placed it on the table next to Dominic’s holdall. He flicked open the locks and lifted the briefcase’s lid, then he removed the new laptop he’d bought for cash and set it on the bed behind him.
White unzipped the holdall Dominic had brought and looked at the neatly stacked bundles of dollar notes, tied up with rubber bands.
Dominic tilted his head at the files inside the briefcase. ‘Quality-control check before the trade.’
‘Of course.’ White picked up a bundle of notes and flicked through it before turning to another.
Dominic scrutinised the files carefully, slowly turning the pages. ‘This is definitely everything?’
‘Of course. When you confirm you’re happy, then you can get in touch with your man and transfer the other seventy-four million dollars to my offshore account.’ White tilted his head towards his laptop. ‘When I confirm it’s been received, we both walk out of here happy.’
‘Absolutely. He’s waiting for my call right now.’ Dominic turned more pages.
White fingered the cash.
Both silently examined their prizes with a smile on their faces.
Dominic picked up another file, but as he opened it, the pages of data s
lid to the floor. He glanced at White, rolling his eyes. ‘Butterfingers.’ He bent down to scoop up the pages as White glanced down at the mess on the floor.
White left him to it. His days of clearing up messes were well and truly over. Instead of helping pick them up, he reached out to replace another bundle of cash back in the holdall. But his hand never got that far.
White was so engrossed in counting the money that he never saw the strike coming. The first thing he felt was a bolt of electric pain exploding in his lower back. A fraction of a moment later, his legs gave way, and he collapsed to the floor like a lead weight, the bundle of notes falling from his hand.
Chapter 63
The Final Shadow
Air was forced through White’s lungs in a rush of breath, his muscles locking rigid with neuromuscular incapacitation, his eyeballs rolling up in their sockets.
Dominic put the small but high-voltage stun gun that had been hidden inside his sock on the table and dragged the twitching, groaning White by his feet across the room before he had time to recover from the blast of over one million volts.
Dominic hoisted White upright, one hand on his belt, one clutching the shirt material between his shoulder blades. White couldn’t have weighed more than ten stone soaking wet. White gurgled a sound in his throat, his eyelids fluttering, his gaze dazed and unfocused.
Before White’s confused brain could even work out what was going to happen, he was sailing headfirst through the open window on a rapid descent past ten storeys, hurtling into a permanent retirement.
Dominic slid the stun gun into the pocket of his combats. He took a pair of sunglasses from his top pocket and put them on. Then he collected the briefcase and holdall and headed for the door.
He opened it a couple of inches, peering up and down the corridor. Empty.
No one noticed him striding towards the staircase at the end of the hall, and even if they had, the description of him would’ve been so poor. The CCTV had already been hacked and was replaying footage from an empty corridor hours before, ditto for the council cameras nearby.
He entered the stairwell and hurried down them two at a time. Somewhere in the distance, a woman was screaming. No prizes for guessing that she must’ve seen White’s splattered body on the terrace. By the time Dominic made it through the fire escape door that exited onto the side of the building, it was 6.49 p.m.
He walked out of the car park and onto the main street, head down, striding to his anonymous car with false plates parked in a side road. He smiled to himself as he unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel, thinking about defenestration—a method of assassination that went back hundreds of years through the history books. He didn’t care that they’d find the electrical burn marks on the body and know it wasn’t an accident. Sometimes the enemy needed to know their guy was taken out.
Back in 1953, Frank Olson, a scientist who’d worked for the CIA’s MK-Ultra project, had been killed in the same way. Dominic thought it had an ironic synchronicity to it. An apt message to MI5, the government, and the dark shadows who controlled them all. What they gave out eventually came right back. And Dominic was certain White’s death would be covered up completely, anyway, by his own kind, because the government wouldn’t be able to stand the heat from the public that was about to be unleashed. But as long as there were shadows out there, he’d work in the darkness to save the light.
He glanced at the clock on the dashboard as he started the engine, humming a tune to himself. 6.53 p.m. Still over an hour to go before his anniversary dinner. Perfect timing.
He sent a text to a burner phone belonging to Jeff, one of Lee’s team. No further action needed.
Even if Jeff had been forced to send the wire transfer to White’s account that he’d hacked into to progress the trade, it was all just fake generated computer numbers, money made out of thin air. Just like every other bank transfer in the world.
As he drove through the streets, he glanced at the clock again. 7.01 p.m.
He passed several people on the pavements, but they didn’t notice him. They were too busy staring at their phone screens, shock and outrage splashed all over their faces.
He opened the window, letting a hot breeze filter though. Electric prickled on his skin like static, energising every nerve ending.
A storm was coming. He could feel it in the air.
A Note From The Author
Like most of my novels, Dark Shadows was also inspired by real life. The original idea was sparked from the infamous and horrific mind control experiments of MK-Ultra, Project Chatter, Project Bluebird, and Project Artichoke, but when I started researching mind control for the technological age, what I discovered became even more mind-blowing! So although this sounds like a dystopian novel, it’s based on the following frightening reality: technology currently being developed and actual patent applications (some by globally known corporations) involved with brain-computer interfaces, brain implant devices, and technology for mind control/mind reading, devices for remotely monitoring/altering brainwave patterns, and artificial intelligence. Patents for various viruses, including the use of vaccinations with nanotechnology. And a partnership of elite global alliances whose manifesto is to combine vaccinations with digital tracking ID and mass surveillance and monitoring of individuals. RFID spychips are currently being used globally on a mass scale, and some people have already been microchipped with them. The Internet of Things is also real.
I used far too many research references to note them all here, but I recommend a few books that also included in my research: Your Thoughts Are Not Your Own by Neil Sanders, Permanent Record by Edward Snowden, The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War by Marcia Mitchell and Thomas Mitchell, Propaganda Blitz by David Edwards and David Cromwell, Spychips by Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre, and Selling Hitler: Propaganda and the Nazi Brand by Nicholas J O’Shaughnessy.
I’d like to say a huge thanks to my readers from the bottom of my heart for choosing my books! I really hope you enjoyed Dark Shadows. If you did, I would be so grateful if you could leave a review or recommend it to family and friends. I always love to hear from readers, so please keep your emails and Facebook messages coming (contact details are on my website: www.sibelhodge.com). They make my day! If you want to read more from Detective Becky Harris, you can find her investigating other crimes in The Disappeared and Their Last Breath. Mitchell features in Untouchable and Into the Darkness. And Toni is also in Into the Darkness.
Thank you to Stefanie Spangler Buswell for all the editing suggestions and for catching the things I missed.
And a very big thank you goes to the lovely book reviewers Mark Fearn and Joseph Calleja for beta reading this for me. It’s very much appreciated!
As always, a massive thanks goes out to Hubby Hodge for all your support, encouragement, and chief beta reading duties. You rock!
And finally, a loud shout-out and hugs to all the amazing book bloggers and book reviewers out there who enthusiastically support us authors with their passion for reading.
Sibel xx
Also by Sibel Hodge
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Their Last Breath (Detective Carter Book 3)
Into the Darkness (Detective Carter Book 2)
Duplicity (Detective Carter Book 1)
The Disappeared
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Untouchable
Where the Memories Lie
Look Behind You
Butterfly
Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave
Fashion, Lies, and Murder (Amber Fox Mystery No 1)
Money, Lies, and Murder (Amber Fox Mystery No 2)
Voodoo, Lies, and Murder (Amber Fox Mystery No 3)
Chocolate, Lies, and Murder (Amber Fox Mystery No 4)
Santa Claus, Lies, and Murder (Amber Fox Mystery No 4.5)
Vegas, Lies, and Murder (Amber Fox Mystery No 5)
Murder and Mai Tais (Danger Cove Cocktail Mystery No 1)
Killer Colada (Danger Cove Cocktail Myste
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The See-Through Leopard
Fourteen Days Later
My Perfect Wedding
The Baby Trap
It’s a Catastrophe
Non-Fiction
Deliciously Vegan Everyday Kitchen
Deliciously Vegan Soup Kitchen
Healing Meditations for Surviving Grief and Loss