The Dark Web: The stunning new thriller from the author of The Angolan Clan (African Diamonds Book 3)

by Christopher Lowery

  Finally, he asked, ‘Is there any proof, or is this just a money-making stunt?’ He listened again, then put the phone down, a worried look on his face.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Leo’s in jail for rape.’

  ‘What? That’s bullshit. He wouldn’t rape a girl if she asked him to, it’s total rubbish.’

  Shen sat silently, his face as inscrutable as always.

  ‘OK, here’s the situation.’ Tom assembled his thoughts. ‘This morning at three-thirty, a woman called the police to say she’d been raped by Leo. They’d been for a drink to Club 27 and came back to her flat and he raped her there. The police came to her apartment and she was distressed and hysterical, so they took her to a police doctor who confirmed she’d recently had sexual relations. Her wrists and legs were bruised as if she’d been held down, and she had a black eye she said he’d given her when she wouldn’t do what he wanted. She named the man as Leo Stewart and gave them his address. They went round to arrest him and saw he was bruised on the face and had fingernail scratches on his arms, back and shoulders. He was taken to the Bur Dubai police station and checked by a doctor, who confirmed the marks on his body were consistent with a woman defending herself against him.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Shen spoke for the first time.

  ‘He’s in a holding cell at Bur Dubai until they take him to the magistrate later today.’

  ‘Is he OK?’ asked Ed. ‘I mean, all this is a heap of crap, but I’ve heard the stories about police brutality here. And if he could only text me three words and then couldn’t answer the phone, he must be in bad shape.’

  ‘Hatim said it’s a miracle he was informed immediately. He told them Leo is an executive at XPC which is a billion-dollar Chinese investment and they’d better not treat him badly, or Shanghai is going to be very pissed off, so they let him see him. He’s been beaten up a bit by the police, but he’s OK. He admits he was with the woman last night in her flat. But he says it was at her invitation, and they listened to music and they had sex twice before he left her with a goodnight kiss and went back to his place.’

  Daniel Oberhart asked, ‘Did he tell you who the woman is?’ Ed was sure he knew the answer, but he waited for the CEO’s confirmation.

  Tom consulted his notes. ‘Angela da Sousa. She’s a Brazilian woman who Leo met a few nights ago, and they fixed a date last night.’

  Oberhart said nothing, but he gave Shen a querulous look.

  Shen managed to show some emotion. ‘Angela? She’s a very good friend of my partner and me. Daniel knows her as well. There’s no way she’d lie about a thing like that, she’s a fabulous person. I knew there was something about that kid. Pushy, arrogant fucking know-all. I told you so, remember? And now he’s raped a beautiful woman who trusted him enough to invite him home. I’ll kick the shit out of him if I see him again.’

  Ed had been observing Liáng for a while in his own quiet way. His opinion of the Chinaman was that he was irrelevant and divisive, continually undervaluing Leo’s contribution while praising Sharif to the skies. He knew there was history between them, and it showed. This was the longest – in fact, the only – speech he’d ever heard him make, and he wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  ‘What in Christ’s name are you talking about, you ungrateful tosser? He’s just saved your whole fucking Chinese business by sorting a problem that no bugger else could fix, especially you. You were in deep shit before he came, and you know it. He’s worth more to this company than you’ll ever be. And don’t go accusing him of raping that woman, because she was just as keen on him as he was on her.’ Ed stopped, thinking about Angela, Elodie, Shen, whatever their relationship was. ‘Unless she’s into women and not men, that is.’

  Shen gave him a vicious look, but reverted to saying nothing.

  Tom held up his hands. ‘Guys, no one here knows what happened, so let’s stop being judge and jury about it and work out what we can do to help.’

  Sharif spoke for the first time. ‘I agree with Ed. There’s no way Leo would have raped a woman, he’s a respectful kind of guy. And we’d still be stuck with the remote upgrades if he hadn’t come up with the solution.’ He looked at Shen. ‘I got a call in Sharjah yesterday from him about some extra tests he was doing. He’s smarter than any of us, and we need him to be involved in the final testing and design to be sure we can deliver the job on time.’

  ‘He told me the same thing yesterday morning, but I couldn’t help him,’ Daniel said. ‘He was going to call you right away.’ The Swiss man was nervous, there was definitely something not right about this situation. Yesterday Leo had asked him about a cell that he couldn’t find in the network, and now they were discussing his arrest on a rape charge. What the hell’s going on? He looked again at Shen, who was wearing his most inscrutable expression.

  Tom snapped his fingers, ‘That’s right. He asked me about a cell function as well. Did you check it out, Shen?’

  The Chinaman looked uncomfortable and shot a glance back at Sharif, who made no comment. ‘I haven’t had time yet, I just got in. I’m going to look at it with Sharif later on. But you’re right, I’m sorry, we have to try to get Leo out of there as soon as possible.’

  Ed looked at him in astonishment, but just said to Tom, ‘What happens next? Did Hatim tell you?’

  ‘He said the appearance in front of the magistrate is a formality. They’ve agreed for him to represent Leo, which is a blessing, because none of us understands a word of Arabic. He’ll plead not guilty and make a statement, then they’ll hold him to await trial.’

  ‘Which prison?’ Ed knew there were two options, Port Rashid and Dubai Central Prison. He’d heard very bad stories about the former, but he knew whichever it was it would be a life-changing experience for his friend.

  ‘Hatim thinks he can wangle things to keep him in Bur Dubai until the trial, but that’s not the problem.’

  ‘Can we visit him? I can drive down there now. There must be stuff he needs, I can get it and take it in for him.’

  ‘Apparently nobody except his lawyer will be permitted to visit him until after the trial. He’s virtually incommunicado.’ He looked at his notes again. ‘Hatim says the case will go very quickly, and unless Leo can provide some kind of proof, or this woman Angela withdraws her accusation, there’s no chance of him avoiding a guilty verdict.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘The official penalty for rape is death by firing squad, but that would only be in an aggravated case, something involving torture or murder for example. It’s usually commuted to life imprisonment or less, and sometimes it can be settled by a financial arrangement. If it’s not, he’d be sent to Port Rashid or Dubai Central. That’s all I know, everything Hatim told me.’

  Ed shuddered. ‘Do you have any idea of what would happen to him if he went to one of those hellholes on a rape conviction? He’d be sodomised by every bugger in the prison and dead from AIDS in a year. Fucking hell! This is an insane situation.’

  ‘One thing is sure. I have to call his mother and give her the bad news, before they get it from the press or the embassy. It’ll probably be all over the papers tomorrow, “Englishman arrested on rape charge in Dubai”, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Hang on, Tom. Can’t we keep a lid on this?’ Oberhart asked. ‘I mean, this is a pretty serious charge, and Leo’s a Senior VP of an important foreign-owned business in Dubai. This could become a big issue and do a lot of damage to XPC. Neither the company nor any of us will benefit from that.’

  ‘Shit, I wasn’t even thinking about that aspect. You’re right, we’ve got to do everything we can to keep this quiet until we know exactly what happened, the likely outcome and what the collateral damage looks like. Nothing gets out of this room unless and until I say so. I’ll tell Hatim and Ms Stewart the same thing, nobody talks about this to anyone.’

  Ed couldn’t believe that everyone seemed to be putting the company’s interests ahead of Leo and his family.
‘Hang on a minute, Tom. We need to get Hatim over to get a clearer idea of what’s likely to go on before you speak to his mother. We can’t just call and say, “Hi there. Leo’s in jail for rape and we don’t know what’s going to happen to him, sorry.” There must be something we can do to help.’

  ‘OK, you’re right, Ed. This is a new situation for all of us, I’ll get Hatim to come over now.’ Connor looked at his watch. ‘I can’t call anyway for a few hours, it’s only five-thirty a.m. over there.’ He looked worriedly from Sharif to Ed. ‘The next question is, though, if we can’t get Leo back quickly, can you two guys get the final testing and design ready for Shanghai by the end of the month? That’s in just three weeks’ time.’

  Ed answered first, typically giving his friend the kudos for their present status. ‘Leo ran a successful, fully redundant end-to-end solution, so if I take his final logs, I can write the definitive code. I’ll test it to death myself to be doubly sure, but if everything runs as it did for him on Tuesday and there are no bad surprises, the firmware should be OK. You, Sharif ?’

  ‘Same here. The design is finished except to incorporate Leo’s remote upgrade requirements, but I don’t see any problems with that. If Shen clears up the question about that cell he asked about, I can deliver without Leo. I don’t want to, but I can if I have to.’

  ‘No problems on the network side,’ Oberhart added. ‘I’ve cleared the decks for the next few days, so get testing.’ He tried to sound relaxed and bullish, but he was a very worried man.

  ‘OK, guys. I feel a lot better hearing that. I’ll let you know what Hatim has to say.’ Tom breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to have to write a report for Shanghai, and every positive response made the task a little easier.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Bur Dubai Police Station, United Arab Emirates

  Friday, 9 July 2017

  Leo was pushed into a cell with four other men and two double bunks. No washbasin or toilet, but the cell still smelled like a cesspit and it took him a long time to ignore it. There was no place to sit other than on the bunks, and since he was the last occupant, he had no bunk. Behind him the guard locked the barred door and walked away along the corridor. Leo had just undergone a humiliating medical examination by what he suspected was a gay doctor, and had blood and urine samples taken to check for drug use. He now had a lot more bruises on his body from the beatings the police had given him on the way to the station and while moving him around inside. They were incapable of letting him walk without smashing a baton into his back or kidneys.

  Hatim Ackerman had arrived as the doctor was finishing the examination, and he’d been allowed five minutes with him to give his account of the night’s events.

  Leo’s first question was, ‘Have you spoken to Angela?’

  ‘We’re not allowed to speak to her until the hearing, and I doubt she’ll be there. They’ll have a signed statement from her and the doctor will say she’s too distraught to appear. Meanwhile, we just have to wait.’

  ‘You know this is a stitch-up don’t you? She invited me to her place and we had sex twice, and she enjoyed it as much as I did. She even played my favourite Led Zeppelin number for me while we made out. If anybody got raped last night, it wasn’t her, it was me. You’ve got to find out why she’s done it and get her to withdraw the charge. It’s probably to blackmail money out of me and I can raise some through my family, but you need to see her as quickly as you can. I’ve got responsibilities at XPC and I can’t afford to spend any more time in this shithole of a prison.’

  ‘I’ll try to contact her, but I don’t think she’ll agree to see me, especially if it’s a false accusation.’

  ‘Then you’ve got to get Tom or someone from the office to see her. There must be a way to convince her to see reason.’

  The lawyer agreed to this, then said, ‘I have a strategy to maybe get you released as quickly as possible. You’ll appear in front of the public prosecutor this afternoon to make your not guilty plea and sign a written statement. It’s in Arabic, but I’ll make sure it’s correct. I’m going to ask for bail but it’ll be refused, so I’ll propose house arrest with a corporate assurance until the trial. They’re very wary of upsetting foreign investors, especially Russia and China, so I think they might consider it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘They’ll either agree to house arrest, or more likely keep you in Bur Dubai Station instead of moving you to one of the other prisons. If they send you there, you’ll be forgotten for a very long time, so I’m trying my best to keep you here where we can keep tabs on you until the trial.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘It’s impossible to say, but with some pressure from XPC it might be within a month.’

  Leo was incredulous. ‘You mean, even in the best of circumstances I might be stuck in this stinking dung heap for a month?’

  ‘I’ll do my best, but things here aren’t like the UK or the US, and we just have to work with the system as best we can.’ Hatim went on to explain the house rules to Leo, the only ones he registered being: ‘Stay up here on the ground level and don’t go down to the basement area, that’s where the druggies and serious criminals are housed. Assert your authority quickly but don’t get into fights, it doesn’t matter how tough you are, they can be fatal. They’ve got some very nasty ways of hurting you, like gang rapes and with HIV-infected blood.’

  The guard came to take him to the cells, and Leo asked, ‘Has anyone called my mother? They won’t let me use the phone. Can you make sure someone calls her?’ The lawyer assured him that Tom Connor would call Emma that afternoon. ‘Please ask him to be gentle with her, she’ll be horrified to hear I’m in jail. It’ll be the worst thing she’s ever heard.’

  Ackerman left, promising to keep the CEO informed of everything and to be back for the hearing in the afternoon.

  Leo pushed the few items he’d brought under one of the bunks and sat on the end of a bed near the door, sizing up the situation, working out how he could assert his authority. The first problem was that he was the only African, which he knew probably spelled trouble. There were two Asian men and two who looked like Europeans, so he addressed them all.

  ‘Hi, I’m Leo. What’re your names?’

  A blond guy in a vest with spectacles, an earring and tattoos covering his arms and neck said, ‘Phil. You got any cigarettes?’ He was sitting on an upper bunk and spoke with an American accent. A bloody gash ran across his forehead as if he’d been hit hard with a sharp instrument.

  ‘Sorry, don’t smoke. You guys?’

  One of the Asians answered, ‘He’s Tony, and I’m Rafa. We’re from Karachi. What’s it to you, anyway?’

  ‘Just getting to know my neighbours. How come you’re in here?’

  ‘We just got here this morning to look for work. Fucking cops put drugs in our bags at the customs and arrested us. They beat the shit out of us and now they want $200 to let us out, and we don’t have it. You?’

  Leo wasn’t convinced the drugs had been planted, but he replied, ‘I was in a street fight, somebody got hurt so they blamed me. I’ve got to go up for trial, maybe then I can pay a fine and get out.’

  The fourth man stood up, looked European, about five-ten with a ragged scar running around his throat. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, quizzing everybody like you own the place?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’ Leo asked, standing up to his full height of six-four.

  The man stood his ground, looking up at Leo. ‘Fighter, eh? Marquis of Queensbury rules? You’ll need to be careful here, there’s some real vicious brawlers around.’ He spoke excellent English with an Eastern European accent.

  ‘Du bist Deutsch, oder? You’re German, right?’ Leo dredged up a few words from his college language studies.

  ‘Good try. Polish, Gdańsk. Oskar Novak.’ He leaned over and shook hands. ‘Good to meet someone with an education in this shitty country.’

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

&n
bsp; ‘You don’t know Leo very well, do you?’ Ed Muire was speaking to Daniel Oberhart.

  The Swiss man was immediately on the defensive. ‘I’m not sure what you mean. I hardly know him at all, why?’

  ‘Is that why your first reaction was to worry about the reputation of the company, and not about his shitty situation?’

  Oberhart was quiet for a moment, thinking about his role in Leo’s appointment. ‘You’re right, Ed and I’m sorry, I got my priorities completely wrong. I apologise, and I hope you won’t mention it to Leo, it was just thoughtlessness.’

  ‘OK, no harm done. I suppose you don’t know about his family life, not that there’s much to know, but he hasn’t had it easy.’

  ‘I was talking with him the other day. He told me he’d never known his father, but that’s all he said.’

  ‘As far as I know, Leo’s family is his mother and her sister, his aunt Jenny. They’re the only relatives I’ve heard him mention. He’s never had a father, so his mum’s going to be blown away when Tom calls her. And there’s nothing she or his aunt can do, they’ll be completely whacked by this fake accusation. So, forget about the company’s reputation, and let’s try to help get Leo back from that shithole prison and finish the job he’s been doing really well.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much I can do, but if there is, just ask and I’ll be happy to help.’ The two men shook hands, and Ed went out. Oberhart took out his mobile and called the Zurich number. His father answered, and he said, ‘We’ve got another problem.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Friday, 9 July 2017

  Hatim Ackerman arrived at one o’clock and was shown up to Tom’s office. Shen and Ed Muire were already there. Tom hadn’t invited Daniel or Sharif, but he felt that Ed should attend since he’d been the first to be contacted by Leo.