by Mark Lingane
She suffered from the same level of happy fatigue she had felt during those early teenage nights with her first boyfriend—exhausted, confident, and every part of her aching. She smiled, then and now, even after a tormented nightmare of slashing blades of death after she had finally succumbed to a few hours of sleep. In her dream, she had run, but couldn’t escape. Eventually a great weight the size of a planet had fallen on her, which had been the trigger for her to wake up.
Any more of this and she’d have to think about cutting back her hours.
The CF-555 printed on the device under the hatchback kept flashing through her mind, and the young man’s phone with the similar initials CF.
The desk sergeant nodded at her as she swiped her security card and entered. She rounded the corridor and was confronted by a familiar set of boots sticking out of her cubicle.
“Chambers, what are you doing here?” she said.
“Yeah, good to see you, too, DCI. I’ve been transferred.”
“Who authorized that?”
“Does it matter?”
Hanson sighed and sat down. She took a sip of her grande and looked at him with bleary eyes. Her gaze slipped sideways to a small stack of paper in her in-tray. She fanned them over her desk and picked up one. She squinted at it.
“Where’s the boy we rescued?”
“In the military hospital,” Chambers replied.
“What military hospital?”
“They set one up in Guys and St. Thomas’ opposite the Marriot.”
“I organized for him to be sent to Great Ormond Street.”
“Military overrode you.”
“No one overrides me.” She stood up. “I’m speaking to the chief.”
“Yeah, he’s been overridden, too.”
“Who—”
“DCI Hanson, please join me in my office at your earliest convenience.” The voice boomed out across the open-plan office. Several heads turned to see who was the latest victim for the walk of shame.
“Why does he do that? We have an intercom system. He sounded cross. Did he sound cross to you?”
“How does he normally sound?” Chambers said. “I need a yardstick.”
“I’ll be right back.”
With her head held high, Hanson strode over to the corner office with the impressive view and leather chair. Chief Inspector Booker was flicking through a thick sheaf of paper. When she entered the office, he indicated for her to close the door.
“Tracy, I can see by the bruises and cuts that you’ve had a bad twenty-four hours. When exactly did you write this?”
“At about four-thirty this morning.”
Booker nodded his head sagely. He slid the paper to one side and pulled out another folder. “I have a report here that says you sustained a slight head injury.”
Hanson nodded. “It was very mild, sir. I was fatigued and stressed. More of a shock than any physical damage.”
“You say that, but when I look at this, and let’s be frank, voluminous report, the contents indicate a rather … tenuous grip on reality.”
“But it’s all fact.”
“Ah, that’s what concerns me.” He looked up into her face.
“The facts?”
“No, that you think these are facts. Floating cars. Secret agents. Foreign technology.”
“Alien.”
“Foreign.” He raised his eyebrow at her.
She struggled with his implication. He had to understand. “But what about that man I mentioned, and the car, and the escaping metal bomb? The weird physics. Even Dan says—”
“Yes, yes, enough, I get your point.” He held up his hands. There were several paper cuts on his thumbs. “Dan’s not on your side with this.”
“But it works. It makes sense.”
“None of this makes sense, Tracy. Even how you’re behaving now isn’t like you.” He sat back and swung his chair around, looking out over East London. “We write reports here, not bad science fiction. To me, it looks like we’ve pushed you a little too hard of late. You’ve been stellar for so long, but something had to give. You’ve done very well with all the TV appearances and all, especially with the boy. That’ll get you all over the papers and make you look good when it comes to pay-review time. Let’s make yesterday the full stop. Come back in a week and start a new paragraph, one with a nice curly uppercase letter at the beginning.”
“You mean like a chapter.”
“That’s the one. Dismissed.”
“But sir, I demand a …” Her head was spinning and illogical thoughts were bumping together.
“A what? This isn’t The X Factor. There’s no public vote. Look, we’ll put it down to fatigue. It’s out of your hands. It’s out of mine. For us, the case is closed. We move on.”
“But it’s my case,” she pleaded.
“I’m sorry, not anymore. The government sees the downing of the plane as an act of war. It’s been reclassified. It’s now the military’s responsibility.”
“Why?” She blinked, disbelieving.
“The government believes it was terrorists. They say they have a list. If they think the military can do it better, then good luck to them, I say. It’s going to be a nightmare. Dismissed.”
Hanson stood up and hovered momentarily before walking briskly out of the office. She went back to her desk. Chambers had gone. She sat staring blankly at the monitor, feeling her grip on her emotions slipping, completely unsure what to do next.
She always knew what to do next … but not now.
Hanson tried to engage her mind with something else. She had a stack of work inches high to complete, but she was unable to focus. Her thoughts kept coming back to Cally, the young boy. So, with a refilled grande, she made her way to the Guys and St. Thomas’ temporary hospital.
As she stood outside, her thoughts wandered back to Chambers. She wondered where he had gone, and why he hadn’t said goodbye. She felt a little hurt.
The clouds were rolling in. Even for the UK, this was turning into a dark day. The rain began to sprinkle down. She looked at her boots, dusty and beaten after the previous day’s ordeal. She should clean them. She always cleaned them. But not today.
Hanson thought again about the boy. She thought about her work. It all seemed too hard. She walked over to the Thames and looked down into the flowing current silted with mud and effluent.
Her phone rang. The caller was blocked.
“Hello, DCI Hanson?” came the voice down the line.
“Hmm?”
“I’ve been through the list.”
“Who is this?”
“I’m Marlene from G4SX. You asked for someone to check through the access list for the South London devastation area.”
“Look, I’m going to have to cut you off. I’m not on the—”
“We found the name of the person, the unauthorized one.”
Her police senses kicked in, overriding all else.
“All names corresponded to our records except for a Mr. Ronnie Petal. You’ll like this. We checked with the swipe system. The pass used was military, but not straight military. It was R&D. Did you see anyone in a military uniform?”
The Indian hadn’t struck her as a “Ronnie,” and she’d never met a Petal. It had to be him.
Before the call was cold, and before she could think too much about why the research and development branch of the military would be involved, she was on her way back to the office. Within minutes, she was logging onto the HQ system. She searched the public and police records. Nothing came up.
The young man had spoken with a clear and intelligent voice, and although he was clearly of Indian ethnicity, he spoke without an accent, which meant he had been born here, and well educated here. She put him in his late twenties. He had detailed knowledge of electromagnetic theory. He was awkward. That probably meant he had a Ph.D. in physics.
She typed into the search engine.
>>TOP PHYSICS UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE
>>
PHD GRADUATES IN LAST DECADE
She swore. He said he had signed the Official Secrets Act five years ago. That meant his Ph.D. would have been awarded before that. She entered in new dates for Ph.D. graduates and the number of candidates dropped to 298.
>>PHD ETHNICITY
CAUCASION: 176 ASIAN: 102 AFRICAN: 15 OTHER: 3
>>ASIAN BY GENDER
MALE: 71 FEMALE: 30 OTHER: 1
>>ASIAN MALE BY LOCATION
EUROPE: 17 USA: 32 ASIA: 15 AFRICA: 1 UNKNOWN: 6
>>PRINT UNKNOWN
The results showed a list of six. One was deceased. One was in prison. A couple of phone calls pinpointed two who were avoiding paying their student loans. She typed one of the remaining two names: Mahesh. His field of study was planetary orbits and gravity. Maybe. But Mahesh was thirty-eight, which was too old. She typed in the remaining name.
>>WHOIS RANDEEP PATEL
AGE: 31
THESIS: CLASSIFIED LORENTZ RESEARCH
SOCIAL SECURITY: N/A
ADDRESS: N/A
EMPLOYER: N/A
>>LORENTZ
IN PHYSICS, THE LORENTZ FORCE IS THE COMBINATION OF FIELD FORCE ON A POINT CHARGE. REFER TO TESLA.
>>TESLA
THE TESLA (SYMBOL T) IS THE SI DERIVED UNIT OF MAGNETIC FLUX DENSITY …
>>MAGNETIC FLUX DENSITY
A MAGNETIC FIELD IS THE MAGNETIC INFLUENCE OF ELECTRICAL CURRENTS AND MAGNETIC MATERIALS. REFER TO ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY.
“Gotcha,” Hanson muttered. “Now, who do you work for?”
Randeep was military, but not. That meant he was a contractor.
>>RESEARCH CONTRACTS AWARDED BY MILITARY
Hanson let out a sigh and rethought her approach. She pulled up the university-access databank and searched for photos of Randeep. The result was zero. She tapped her fingers and searched for graduation photographs from his year. He appeared, unnamed, in a photograph with five other students.
She tapped all the names into the social-media sites and scrolled back through the personal photos until she came to the after-graduation party. She searched through each person’s photos of the event. And there he was, in the back of one photograph talking to a man in military uniform. Another man stood next to him in a plain business suit.
Randeep looked a decade younger in the photo, but it was the man she had seen at the crash site.
She ran the picture through face-recognition software. It failed to detect Randeep, but she wouldn’t forget his face. It returned the names of the two other men: Andrew S. Norton and Clive Poundriff.
>>WHOIS ANDREW S. NORTON
SIR ANDREW S. NORTON
CURRENT POSITION: FIELD MARSHAL
Norton’s online CV showed that he had been a general with command of the Technical Advantage and Development Division at the time of the photograph. The stories showed him to be a decorated war hero; he was injured in the Iraq conflict in the early 1990s, then moved into operations where he had excelled: Clear new thinking revamps tired and out-of-date military arms. Norton was a shining beacon in the sea of nameless top brass.
>>WHOIS CLIVE POUNDRIFF
CURRENT POSITION: UNKNOWN RETIRED/PHILANTHROPIST
BRIBE ALLEGATIONS OF SENTINEL CEO ON MIDDLE EAST FUNDING
GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY TIES TO SENTINEL R&D PROJECT CAUSE CONCERN AT NATO SUMMIT
SENTINEL CEO DENIES MILITARY LINK
SENTINEL CEO RETIRES AMID ALLEGATIONS OF POLITICAL COERCION
Hanson pulled up Poundriff’s leaving party and scrolled through the photographs. In one he was being handed a folder. She twisted the photo to read the contents. The background appeared to be made up of the letters C and F. She squinted at the words running across the two letters. They were blurry. She zoomed in and printed out the screen. She colored in the letters on the printout, giving them definition. She stood back and squinted at her result: CANDLE FIRE.
>>MILITARY CONTRACTS AWARDED TO CANDLE FIRE
>>CANDLE FIRE CONTRACTS
ONGOING R&D: £1,850,000.00
>>CANDLE FIRE CEO
0 RESULTS
>>CANDLE FIRE EMPLOYEES
0 RESULTS
>>CANDLE FIRE RANDEEP PATEL
0 RESULTS
She hit her head on the desk. Dead end.
>>CANDLE FIRE ADDRESS
The North London address blinked at her. She sent it to the printer, then stuffed the printout in her pocket, and raced out the door.
11
THERE WAS A small brass plaque next to the entry. No name, but the number matched. Hanson pushed against the massive glass door. It was locked. She stepped back into the street and surveyed the area, but couldn’t find a buzzer. A CCTV camera faced the entrance. She waved up at the camera. Nothing happened. She flashed her warrant card. Nothing. She put her hands on her hips and looked around. There wasn’t a person in sight.
Hanson shielded her eyes and peered through the tinted windows. She could make out several vague people-shapes, as well as the dim glow of monitors bolted to the walls. The place smacked of utilitarianism. Surely people would be dying to get outside to break the monotony.
She glanced at the coffee shop across the road, walked over, and pushed her way inside. A bored girl sat behind the counter, messaging on her phone. Her eyes barely flicked up as Hanson entered. The only customers were a rowdy bunch of good-looking marketing types enjoying how fabulous they were.
“Any of you work across the road?” Hanson said to the group.
One man gave her a crooked and slimy smile. “Hey, babe, you want to join us? I got a seat for you just here.” He leaned back and patted his knees.
“Eddie, don’t be mean,” purred one of two almost identical blondes.
Hanson glanced around the room with a bored expression on her face. She held her warrant card under Eddie’s nose. “I asked you a question.”
“Answers cost money around here. Why don’t you give me a little down payment, love?”
Hanson took out her cell phone, snapped a photo of him, and slid the phone across the table. Eddie’s face was on the display, and photos of other faces were rapidly turning over beside it. A number was counting down above Eddie’s face.
She pointed to her screen: Possible matches: 5,000.
“This is facial-recognition software,” she said. “I did some time in narcotics after joining the police. If your face appears on this, I have full authority to do a spot check on you”—she looked at the others at the table—“and your friends.”
He frowned. “You don’t scare me.”
“Oh, I think I do. You’re in marketing, by my guess. This is London. I’d say by the clothes you’re wearing, you’re paid well. You’ve got a high disposal income, all the latest gadgets. No wedding ring, so you’re living the single high life. You’re probably a recreational user. If I find something, I’m going to arrest you.”
She showed him the number 3,000 on the screen. “Maybe you have a free-thinking boss who isn’t above that kind of thing himself. Or maybe he is. Maybe I’ll just arrest you for perverting the course of justice.”
“I know cops I can call to sort you out.” Eddie swallowed and looked down at the table.
“I didn’t know we were playing top trumps,” Hanson said. “But if you want to—”
Her phone beeped: 1,000
“—Give me their names; I’ll talk to the commissioner. I know him well. I’m sure he’d like to know about any corrupt officers.”
500
“Even if I get you in through the front doors, there’s no way you can get past security.” Eddie’s voice was quivering now.
100
“That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.” Hanson leaned over and stared into his eyes.
25
“Are you a risk taker, Eddie?”
7
“Look, single digits,” Ha
nson said. “Come on, Eddie, you only need to answer—”
6
“One—”
5
“Little—”
4
“Question.”
3
2
Sweat formed on Eddie’s brow as he focused on the number in front of him. “All right, stop it.” He looked at his friends. “We all work there.” There were several groans.
Hanson put the phone away without looking at it again. “You’re doing the right thing, Eddie. That wasn’t too hard, was it? Now you’re going to do me a favor, just a small one. All you need to do is get me in the building.”
“I can’t do that,” he said, emphasizing each word.
“I can begin the search again. The choice is yours. Nod if you understand.”
There was a barely perceptible movement of his head. “I can get you in the front door, but after that there are turnstiles, and each person has to pass through individually. There’s no way you’ll get past security.”
“Everyone up, let’s go,” Hanson said.
An overconfident-looking man stood up next to Eddie. Fit. Strong. Bloodied knuckles. Boxercizer, she guessed. He was sweating, planning something. She stepped back as he rounded the table to pass her. She took another pace back and caught his punch. She was tired, and he was fast, but it made no difference. His self-belief diminished his ability. She twisted his arm, put him in an armlock, and threw him onto the small table.
Silence descended over the group. They shifted uneasily. The girl at the counter glanced up, then went back to her screen.
“Anyone else fancy a shot?” Hanson said.
They all piled out of the small café and crossed the road in a tightly clustered group with Hanson in the middle. Eddie swiped his card and they entered the brightly lit foyer. Monitors lining the metal walls showed views from the building and several news channels.
