by J. S. Law
She set it aside and looked at her files.
The Tenacity files were on top—she’d been looking at those last—and she flicked through them again now, looking at notes and pictures, names and theories. Ideas as to where Ryan Taylor might have gone since he went missing after the Tenacity investigation ended.
He’d hold the key to understanding what had happened on board Tenacity. He’d have some information about the quantities of narcotics that were being brought in and where they went. When and how the sailors passed it along and how they were paid for their efforts. If he could be found.
She dug in her lockbox again, to the files and laptop a few layers down.
There were years of files generated from investigating Hamilton, and Dan wondered how she’d end up as the years passed by. Would she one day come home to the house and have a huge filing cabinet of all the different cases and investigations that she couldn’t let go of? Maybe she’d work away into her old age, poking into crimes that only she cared about, unable to move on and not totally sure why.
The files on Tenacity covered those that were about Hamilton, and Dan was glad. Some of the images toward the bottom of the box were hard to look at, but they also tempted back more vivid ones, ones that were locked away inside Dan’s mind.
“Not tonight,” Dan said out loud. She put the files back, locked the box, and pushed it under the bed.
She’d read a book tonight. That might clear her mind, stop her from dreaming about crimes and wrongdoing, stop her from dreaming about Christopher Hamilton and all the terrible things he’d done.
14
Dan Lewis—Early September (ten years before)
“Roger,” Dan said, still whispering and ducking down behind her car.
“Where the hell are you?” said Roger, not bothering with a greeting. “Four more members of Carson’s old troop are missing and you’ve gone swanning off. Is Chris with you?”
“We’ve got them. Chris found them. I don’t know how, but he did. We’re up near Aldershot at the British Army Storage Compound on the outskirts of town. I’ve had visual on three of the missing persons, all alive. Chris is in there now keeping watch. We’ve not spotted Carson yet, but it looks like they’ve had it rough. We need armed response and you need to come in quiet. If he hears you there’ll be a bloodbath; he’ll slaughter them all.”
Blackett was silent for a moment and Dan knew he’d be making notes, gesturing for people to gather around him and be ready for instruction.
“Get Chris and get out of there. We’re inbound, but armed response is at least twenty minutes away.”
Dan could hear him running now, heard him take the phone away from his mouth as he barked orders and demanded that the armed response team be connected immediately.
“Roger, we can’t let the military response know. If they get here, he’s dead.”
“We’re inbound. It’s the civilian police I’ve called in, now get out and prevent entry until we get there,” barked Roger.
Dan heard him muffle the phone, probably a hand over the mouthpiece, as he spoke to someone else.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asked, when he came back to her.
“Get Chris and get out,” repeated Dan. “Got it. I’m in the lay-by on the north side, you’ll see our cars as you take the first turning before the main compound entrance.”
“Get Chris and get out,” Blackett said again. “And keep your phone near you.”
The line went dead and Dan leaned back against the car.
It was a nice day here, out in the open, and it jarred against the cold shadows that lay trapped between the high storage buildings she’d walked around with her partner, Chris Hamilton. She looked at her phone, checked that it was switched to silent, and reached into her car, collecting two heavy navy-police-issue telescopic batons. She tucked one into her pocket and kept the other in her hand as she headed back into the compound.
Dan retraced her steps as she made her way back to where she’d left Chris. She had to look down the alley between the two storage units twice, and then check through the window she’d found him looking through, before she was sure she was in the right place.
Chris wasn’t there.
She looked through the window again, recognizing the broken segment of glass from before, and peered between the machinery; she could see the men, kneeling, bound, bloodied; she was in the right place.
She turned and crouched, her back against the wall, and before she could even curse, she looked up to see Matt Carson, who towered above her, a Browning 9 mm pistol in one large hand. It was pointed directly at her face.
“Up,” he said.
Dan didn’t move.
“Up, now,” he said, his eyes on her, hard, but blinking, repeatedly blinking.
He stood straight, broad, not so much confidence as outright challenge in his posture; a fighter gone bad. He was dressed in full combats and had an SA-80 rifle slung across his chest. His face was pale between the stripes of green camouflage cream, and his eyes never stayed still, never locked onto her, as they repeatedly ducked behind his eyelids, pointing somewhere else when they resurfaced.
Dan still didn’t move as her mind worked through all the different ways she might handle this, but Carson didn’t wait.
He grabbed her with his free hand, gripping her navy blue coat around the shoulder and digging in hard against her collarbone, as he easily heaved her to her feet.
Dan winced as his fingers dug in deep and then again as he released her and pushed her back against the wall.
“Give that to me,” he said, pointing at the baton.
Dan did.
“Phone,” he said.
Dan dug into her pocket and passed it to him, watching as he dropped it into a pocket on the thigh of his combat trousers.
“Turn that way.” He pointed along the side of the unit. “Walk.”
Dan hesitated and made to speak, but his hand whipped out more quickly than she could have thought possible.
He was wearing black leather gloves and the whole flat palm of his left hand slapped her cheek, rocking her brain inside her skull and making her knees almost give way beneath her. Her head swam, lights flashing, her eyes opening and closing as she tried to regain her senses.
“Walk,” he said. “That way.”
Dan staggered, used the wall to steady herself, and stumbled along in front of him, waves of nausea ebbing and flowing as her head slowly cleared. She could hear his footsteps behind her but was unsure whether the faint echo was the sound vibrating off the brick walls or vibrating in her head.
“Others are on the way, Matt. My partner has already gone to call for help,” she said, immediately stumbling forward and falling onto all fours as a blow to the back of her head knocked her to the ground.
“Get up and don’t talk, just walk,” he said, and she felt the hand on the scruff of her neck again, pulling her jacket tight against her neck and choking her as he dragged her to her feet.
They walked between the two units for another ten or so meters before the light began to change, brightening as they stepped out of the shadows and into an intersection, a crossroads where the corners of four identical units met.
The road that ran across Dan’s path was big, wide enough for two trucks to pass each other and for armored vehicles and tanks to be stored or collected.
“Go right,” he said.
Dan hesitated, only then realizing how disoriented she was. She heard him move, flinched, and brought her hands up to cover her head, but he didn’t strike her, just grabbed her and pushed her in the right direction.
They walked down the wide road and he stopped her outside a huge hangar door that covered the whole front of a unit.
Set into the door was a smaller entrance.
“Open it,” he said, throwing a set of keys onto the ground.
Dan picked them up, almost toppling as she did, and then fumbled at the lock, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.
“I
n,” he said.
She stepped inside the storage unit.
It seemed to go on forever and there were crates and boxes stacked in huge piles and, next to them, the green metal panels of Land Rovers and armored personnel carriers.
“Put the keys on that box,” he said, tapping a rough wooden pallet and then stepping away from it.
Dan did as she was told. Then she turned to face him, trying to make eye contact, to connect with him, this man who they now believed had killed seven men from his initial entry troop, the group of soldiers that had joined up with him at the Guard Depot in Pirbright many years before.
“Turn away,” he said, raising the gun again.
Dan didn’t. She looked at him.
“These men aren’t responsible for what happened to you,” she said.
He raised the gun until it was leveled at her forehead.
“You’re responsible for your life, and you’re responsible for the seven other lives you took.”
He stepped forward, and Dan closed her eyes tight as she felt the cold metal barrel push against her skull.
“Stop talking!” he shouted. Dan’s head jerked back as the pistol pressed harder against her with each syllable.
Dan kept her eyes closed.
“I don’t believe you meant to kill Victoria, though,” she said, hearing her voice shake. “I really don’t believe you meant to do that.”
“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!”
Dan felt the barrel pull away and relaxed her eyes, though they remained closed.
A ripping, tearing sound echoed around the open space.
Dan opened her eyes and saw him advancing toward her, a strip of thick brown packing tape held out in front of him.
“I won’t speak again,” she said.
“I know.”
He pushed the tape hard against her face, the edges of it touching her hair.
Her head rattled around as he did it, his hands slapping her skin as he smoothed the tape down.
“Don’t move,” he said, and went to lock the door.
He turned back and pointed at her.
“Over there.”
Dan turned, but not quickly enough, and he pushed her again, making her stumble deeper into the storage unit.
They walked, the barrel of his gun occasionally touching the small of her back as he urged her along.
Dan looked around as best she could.
There were few entrances, the ones that there were, metal and heavy, easily locked or booby-trapped. Any team that tried to breach the doors could be taken down before Carson was neutralized. At the very least he’d have time to kill his three or four hostages; this situation had the makings of a massacre, and Dan was now in the center of it.
She wondered where Chris was, and how long it would be before help arrived.
As she passed some equipment, her eyes widened. Kneeling off to the right in a neat semicircle were eleven naked men. She could see that each was held in place by multiple bonds, their ankles zip-tied together, the thick plastic biting into their skin, their arms bound by what looked like wire behind their heads, and more thin rope that ran from their necks to their ankles keeping them arched back and kneeling upright, preventing them from even daring to lean forward. All of them were dirty and bruised, blood seeping from their bonds, their faces swollen and grazed.
Dan had to look again, count them again.
There were supposed to be four, four missing men, the last four that made up Carson’s entry troop. How could they have been so wrong?
He pushed her so hard that she fell forward onto the floor.
Then he was on her, his knee on her back, pulling her arms behind her so hard that she was sure he’d dislocate one of her shoulders.
She tried to cry out but the tape stuck tight and she began to struggle for breath. She looked around, her eyes wide, and then she saw him.
Chris was leaning back against a wooden box, blood running down from his temple, his hands out of sight behind him. He looked completely still, his eyes shut, his body crumpled in a way that looked lifeless and limp.
Dan felt tears well up in her eyes as she saw her partner slumped and still. She looked for any sign of life, anything to tell her that Chris Hamilton, her partner, friend, and mentor, wasn’t Carson’s ninth victim.
15
Tuesday, February 3
“Don’t expect too much,” said Felicity, leading Dan into a small, plain observation room in a secure area of Broadmoor Hospital.
The color of the paint, the smell of the corridors, the architecture and décor, a mix of original Victorian and redeveloped modern that already looked worn, all added to Dan’s deep-seated feeling that she was somewhere she didn’t want to be.
“His solicitor’s been very tight on the agreement to speak, so we’ll have video feed to ensure you’re safe, but we won’t have audio. It’s all we could get, and we won’t know what’s said until we debrief you afterward. It also means anything he says will be your word against his, but it’s a start, and you’re the first person he’s ever agreed to speak with.”
“He didn’t agree. He asked,” said Dan.
Felicity stopped and looked at Dan. She looked worried, a bit tired, had seemed uncomfortable since Dan had agreed to do this.
Dan was sure Felicity hated asking for this, hated herself for being the messenger, but she was right, if Hamilton was willing to start talking, then someone needed to take that opportunity.
“You’re right, he did ask,” said Felicity after a pause. “And we don’t know what he might say, probably very little at first, these things tend to build slowly. We also don’t fully understand his…” Felicity paused. “Obsession with you?” she offered. “I don’t think that’s the right word, but there’s something more there and it makes me uncomfortable.”
“He gets his solicitor to write to me, but that’s it, really; hardly an obsession.”
Felicity looked down at the floor and seemed to think about that before she looked back up at Dan.
“I said it wasn’t the right word, but he’s got some kind of fixation on you, so don’t feel the need to push anything, just see what he says and get a feel for him. This conversation happening at all is already a great outcome. When you think about what success looks like today, it’s simply his consent to another meeting.” Felicity paused again. “And yours,” she added.
Dan nodded and put her hands into her jacket pockets, worried that they might give her away. She’d believed that she’d never have to face Hamilton again, and yet here she was, that solid truth no longer holding firm, and her confidence was shaken at how quickly it’d broken free from its mooring.
“Are you sure?”
It was Roger speaking now, from behind her.
He’d followed them into the room, had been with Dan from the second she’d called him, insisted on being with her when she came, tried to insist on being in the room with her, though Hamilton, or his solicitor, blocked that.
She was glad to have him near and to have his support, though he was vocally against the meeting taking place at all.
Dan thought of John Granger, how he’d been so quiet when she’d called him this morning to say she would be in very late and couldn’t say why. She’d need to tell him soon, regardless of how secretive this whole meeting was, she’d need to tell him because she needed him on her side, realized now that he was one of the few who always was.
“And there’s no way we can get comms in there?” said Roger, speaking to no one in particular, though it was Felicity who made to answer.
“No way,” said a fat, bald man, cutting Felicity off before she could utter a word.
He entered the room quickly and sat down on the chair in the corner.
Dan looked at his expensive suit, fat gold jewelry, and leather briefcase that looked as though it cost more than a month of Dan’s wages.
“No way at all,” he said.
Roger turned to look at the man, making no attempt to hide the
utter contempt he felt for anyone who sided with Hamilton, defended him in court, and ran his errands.
“I’d almost forgotten you were coming,” Roger said, with a fake smile.
“Well, don’t forget again,” said the solicitor, immediately looking back down at a file he’d pulled from his briefcase, ignoring them all.
Roger looked at Dan, his eyes blazing, and Dan smiled at him and mouthed “Calm down,” though she knew it would’ve been good advice to take herself.
“Okay, then,” said Felicity. “Let’s go. He’s in there now. He’ll be in wrist and ankle restraints, as agreed.” She nodded to Hamilton’s solicitor, who didn’t even look up from his paper. “And you have as long as you like, though he’s asked that you agree to stay for at least thirty minutes.”
“If you want to get out, you get out,” growled Roger, his face fixed in an unhappy frown. “No one’ll have anything to say to you about it. I can assure you of that.”
Dan smiled at him again.
He was acting like a protective uncle, and though it often annoyed her when this side of him came out, today it felt reassuring to know he meant it.
“I’d suggest that we pull you out if it starts to go near to an hour,” said Felicity. “That would be a very long chat, and we want you to remember the salient points.”
“I’ll remember,” said Dan, and walked to the door.
An attendant was waiting outside, and he nodded to her and walked with her along an institutional corridor with linoleum floors, magnolia walls, and dirty bars on every window that had once been painted cream.
Dan followed the guard, her eyes down, watching his heels as he walked, noticing how he favored the outside of his right foot when he stepped and how this caused his sole to wear significantly more on that side, only a few millimeters of rubber separating his flesh from the hard floor.
“We’re here, miss,” he said, stopping abruptly. “Knock twice when you want out and I’ll come. It’ll only take me about thirty seconds to get here, but I’ll be watching you on the screen and if anything happens that shouldn’t, I’ll be in that room with you a damn sight quicker than that, okay?”
