Deadly Game

by Matt Johnson

  With no idea where she was or what her captors were planning, Lynn mulled over her options. There were several, but all depended on knowledge. For the time being, there was little she could do other than wait. She had no idea if she was even in the UK. Extreme possibilities plagued her. If the kidnappers were terrorists, then her fate didn’t bear thinking about. It was possible, though, her captors just planned to use her for sex. If that were the case they had better watch out, she thought. One chance would be all that she would need to turn the tables on them.

  Lynn forced herself to think sensibly. She wasn’t an obvious target to secure a ransom pay-out. Her parents were ordinary, not wealthy, and the idea that someone would kidnap a cop for ransom seemed absurd. Chances were the men didn’t even know she was a cop, so wouldn’t realise that, before very long, her colleagues would be looking for her. She knew the lads would stop at nothing to find her.

  Thoughts of the kidnappers being terrorists were daft, she told herself. It was just a case of a group of men who had stumbled across a lone female motorist at night and had taken the chance to grab her. The drug and face mask suggested they were prepared, though. Perhaps she could tell them she was a cop? That might persuade them to dump her, let her go. But the more she thought about that idea, the more she dismissed it. Knowing they’d kidnapped a police officer might make them panic. Their solution might be to kill her and hide her body.

  No, best wait, she decided. Wait until I find out what is going on and then think about how the hell I’m going to get out of this.

  An abrupt burst of bright, wavering light from outside the door was her first indication she had a visitor.

  The door burst open. Two torch beams pierced the gloom, pointing into her eyes, making her squint.

  ‘Step forward.’ The man giving the orders barked the instruction. His voice was deep, strong.

  Lynn pictured a powerful man behind it. This was not the time to try and escape.

  As she stood to obey, Lynn felt two sets of hands grab her arms from the side and force her hands behind her back. Next moment, a set of rigid handcuffs were clicked into place over her wrists.

  She kept silent, but her mind was racing. The men had found her handcuffs. They had been in a bag on the back seat of her car. If the kidnappers had found them, they probably had her warrant card, too, and that meant they knew she was a cop.

  Silently, the men guided her along a small corridor and out into a larger, cooler area. It remained dark, but there were more torch lights, perhaps six or seven. More men then grabbed her, stopping her from walking any further.

  Her arms held tight, Lynn glanced around her, trying to gain a perspective on where she was and how many people were holding her. Her guess was that these were minions who had brought her out to meet the boss. Perhaps now she might learn what was going on.

  ‘Close your eyes, Miss Wainwright.’

  They knew her name. Why did he want her to close her eyes when there was so little light? It was the same powerful, accented voice she had heard in the cell. He was maybe fifteen or twenty feet in front of her, hidden in the darkness.

  ‘You know my name,’ Lynn said. ‘What is this, some kind of hostage thing?’

  The hard slap to the back of her head caught Lynn completely by surprise. If it hadn’t been for the support of the men holding her arms it would have been enough to floor her. Stunned for a moment, she only just caught the repetition of the instruction.

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  Once again, a torch beam lit up her face. Lynn did as she was told.

  From behind, someone slipped a small hood over her head. From some distance away there was the sound of an engine starting up. A generator. Lights came on.

  Lynn took the chance, and opened her eyes, looking down past the edge of the ill-fitting hood. To each side she could see boot-clad feet; black, military type. The kind that police wear. The kind that she wore. For a moment a forlorn hope entered her mind. Was this a practical joke? Some kind of test? Why had they needed to hit her so hard, then? Met coppers were renowned for their creativity in putting together tricks to play on their fellow officers, but this was too much.

  To her right she heard shuffling. People walking quietly. Lots of people. What was this, some kind of audience? For a moment, she felt sick. Then, bar the distant drone of the generator, all was silent.

  A hand snatched at the hood and pulled it back, away from her head. For a moment, the lights blinded her. Then her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and she was able to focus on her surroundings. They were in a cave of some kind. The walls and roof were a dark grey.

  A man in grey military-type fatigues was standing looking at her. Next to him was a woman, her head bowed, looking at the floor. Like Lynn, she too seemed to have her hands tied behind her back.

  This wasn’t a joke.

  Glancing across to her right, Lynn saw the cause of the shuffling noise. There were about thirty or forty women, most with their hair tied up, all facing the man that stood in front of them. They stood in complete silence. Behind the women, to their side and near to her, she quickly counted eight guards. No chance of escape.

  There seemed to be no reason for the hood. Placing it over her head had to have been a mind game, a ploy to create fear. It had worked.

  ‘We have new girl,’ the man in front said. He seemed to be addressing his words to the women.

  Lynn looked at them. Their shoulders were hunched; faces drawn and pale. They looked like junkies – a line-up of forty or so drug addicts. Lynn felt a shiver run down her spine.

  ‘…And we have problem. Big problem.’ The man shouted the word as he turned towards the figure at his side.

  The woman cowered away from the gaze of the silent audience. Only Lynn could see her face. The eyes were swollen and red. The poor wretch kept her vision fixed to the floor, only raising her look for one fleeting moment before the speaker continued.

  In that instant, Lynn saw fear and desperation. A plea for help.

  ‘This … piece of filth went to police. This piece of shit tried to escape.’

  Lynn wondered what the hell was going on. The man’s voice was like the others – East European. But he spoke in English. Were all the women English? Was she still in England?

  ‘Today, we are joined by new girl. Like we have warned you and we now warn this new girl. If you run, we will find you. If you go to authorities, they will bring you back to us. When we catch you, we will punish you. If we do not catch you, we will punish your families.’

  Lynn quickly ran her eyes over the men. No weapons that she could see. How were they keeping the women under control? It must be fear, but fear of what? Her question was answered almost immediately.

  The man at the front pulled a pistol from where it must have been tucked into his trouser belt. With practised skill, he cocked the gun and then pointed at the head of the woman next to him.

  There was no hesitation, no opportunity for a last word, no respect for the taking of a life. As the pistol roared, blood, hair and skull fragments splattered across the floor. The woman’s lifeless form collapsed in a heap at the man’s feet.

  Lynn felt her hands begin to tremble. From the watching women, there was no word, no reaction. Just the same thousand-yard stares.

  The man walked towards her. He raised the pistol. Lynn could see it was a Glock. The barrel pointed at her eye.

  My God, she thought. He’s going to shoot me.

  But he didn’t. He just smiled.

  ‘WPC Lynn Wainwright. So very nice to meet you. You killed one of my men; now you will work to pay debt you owe us.’

  Lynn didn’t reply. The obvious truth she’d avoided for the past few minutes was confirmed. These were the slave traffickers. They had come back for her. These men must be from the gang they had been looking for at the house in Ealing.

  Her mind raced. At least she now knew why she was here, wherever ‘here’ was. What the speaker meant by working off her debt she would no doubt l
earn. They didn’t plan to kill her, it seemed … at least not immediately. Shooting the poor woman was clearly a lesson – to her and to the others.

  ‘Take her away,’ the man barked to the two men who held Lynn’s arms.

  As they spun her around, Lynn caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the forearm of the man who she had thought was about to execute her. She recognised it.

  ‘Legio Patria Nostra’.

  Chapter 71

  The news about Lynn Wainwright didn’t take long to reach me.

  It was midday and I had just arrived outside Scotland Yard. I was parking the Citroen when my pocket started buzzing. It was Josh … he sounded concerned. Together with the SO19 duty sergeant, he had been to Lynn’s house to verify the local inspector’s report that nobody was at home. The bed didn’t look like it had been slept in and the neighbours had noticed that her car hadn’t been in its usual spot. Lynn hadn’t gone home the previous evening.

  As Nina and I had been amongst the last people to see Lynn, Josh had been tasked to call us. I wasn’t much help. Nina had spent more time with Lynn, so I suggested she might be a better person to speak to.

  Josh told me discreet checks had been made at hospitals covering the route Lynn would take to work and with the Police Information Room to see if there had been any road accidents involving her car. With no reports of sightings and no clue to her whereabouts, ninety minutes after having noticed her absence, the SO19 duty inspector put in a call to his Chief Superintendent, Peter Ackerman.

  Phone calls were made to Lynn’s friends and colleagues. Did she have a boyfriend she might have stayed overnight with? Had she gone somewhere that might have delayed her getting to work? Was she depressed or particularly upset at being suspended? All responses came back negative.

  Lynn Wainwright had disappeared.

  And there was an even more worrying development. Josh was calling from Lambeth car pound. Lynn’s car had been found on a removal lorry on its way to their lock-up facility.

  It had been found abandoned in the middle of the street.

  I had just finished the call with Josh, slipped off my seat belt and reached for the car door, when the phone rang again. It was Toni Fellowes. She wanted a chat.

  ‘On a Saturday?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ came the brittle response. ‘On a Saturday. Are you in your office?’

  ‘I’m outside. Just parked the car. I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  As I walked into our squad office, Toni was standing, looking distracted, as if something was playing on her mind. She wasn’t the only one. After the earlier call from Jenny, I wasn’t minded to give our liaison officer an easy ride. I wanted answers.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked, as she pulled up a chair and sat down. She indicated that I should do likewise – and in my own office, I thought.

  ‘I’ve been better. Have you spoken to Jenny today?’ I asked, bluntly.

  ‘I haven’t. Should I have?’

  ‘Perhaps, yes. I imagined after exposing your charges to a risk like the Cristeas, you might be being extra careful.’

  She held her hands up in apology. ‘Look … I know. Believe me, if I could turn the clock back I would. Like I said on the phone, it was an oversight. I thought someone else was doing the checks; they thought I was. Left hand, right hand.’

  ‘A little bird told me you knew about the Cristeas.’

  ‘Nina Brasov, I’d bet.’

  Not being the best at masking surprise, my reaction gave me away.

  ‘I thought so,’ Toni continued. ‘She called me. She seems very protective of you.’

  ‘We get on pretty well … she’s a good detective.’

  ‘Well, she was an angry detective when she called me. I tried to reassure her that I hadn’t known the extent of the Cristea criminal connections, but she was having none of it.’

  ‘Is she right?’ I demanded. ‘When I first asked you about it, I thought it was a case of you being careless. Now, it strikes me as a bit of a coincidence you gave me and Jenny a copy of a book that Cristea Publishing put out, just when I’m about to take a trip to the same resort they’re staying at.’

  ‘She’s not … I promise you. Slave trafficking is not on the MI5 radar, especially not at the moment.’

  ‘But what about the more obvious reason – that you were setting me up to try and locate Chas Collins? It’s been in all the papers that the CIA and people like you are looking to have talks with him … and we all know what that means, don’t we?’

  ‘Believe me, this was a simple cock-up, not a conspiracy.’

  I gave her a wry smile. I didn’t believe her, and I made sure she knew it. Truth is, I’d never yet met a spook who was completely trustworthy. The fact that Toni had been pursuing an agenda shouldn’t really have been a revelation to me.

  ‘OK … let’s leave it,’ I said. ‘I asked you if you’ve spoken to Jenny because the Cristeas have been in touch.’

  ‘Contacted you, you mean?’

  ‘It looks like the family sent a team over here to kill off a witness who was going to give evidence against them.’

  ‘And they contacted you about that?’

  ‘Not exactly. We had an email from the daughter, Marica. Like I told Nell, I saw one of their men near the scene of the murder this week and I was sure he clocked me. Well, it looks like I was right. He did recognise me and reported it home. The email was a warning to keep out of her father’s way.’

  ‘She threatened you?’

  ‘It was a warning to a friend she considers she owes her life to. Unfortunately, Jenny opened it.’

  ‘Christ … I’m sorry. Is Jenny upset?’

  I stood, walked to the office door, and closed it gently before answering. ‘You could say that, Toni. Or you might even start to think she is running out of patience. I’m heading home soon and she wants to talk. I put her through enough with what Monaghan tried to do to us. I hadn’t wanted her to know anything about the Cristea family or the risk you exposed us to in Romania.’

  ‘She would have found out eventually.’

  ‘Would she?’ I demanded, my voice revealing the anger I felt building. ‘Sometimes ignorance is bliss, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘And look where that got you before, Finlay. You kept your past secret for too long, and from the one person best placed to help you.’

  ‘That’s completely different,’ I snapped.

  Toni raised her hands again. ‘OK … Ok, let’s not argue. It’s not going to get either of us anywhere. What’s this I hear on the news about a missing WPC?’

  She was changing the subject, but she was right: arguing got us nowhere. ‘Bad luck seems to be my shadow at the moment,’ I answered. ‘We were involved in a shooting in West London. She shot one of the Cristea goons.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes. And one escaped; I think it’s the one who recognised me in Hampstead.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do?’

  ‘To make things up to me, you mean? Well, hold on to that thought, Toni, because you never know.’

  ‘Is the WPC suspended?’

  ‘Just from carrying a weapon, not from duty.’

  ‘She’s probably fine. Things like that can affect people. Maybe she’s lying low for a while.’

  I looked at Toni, aware she was tempering the conversation, trying to calm me down. ‘Who knows? But, from what I’m being told, her disappearing like this is completely out of character. Anyway … if you didn’t ask me up here to talk about the Cristea email, what do you want?’

  ‘I need to ask you some questions, some of which may seem a bit random. But I need you to be honest.’

  ‘Sounds ominous. But fire away.’

  I sat down and, for the next few minutes listened in silence while Toni spelled out the progress she had been making on the enquiry into Monaghan and Richard Webb. It wasn’t good news. Her researcher, Nell had uncovered even more links between the dead men than
Tom Cochran had suggested when Kevin and I visited Credenhill.

  The longer Toni spoke, the greater became my sense of impending doom. She asked a lot of questions, some of which I would have preferred she hadn’t. I explained that I hadn’t heard of Black Suit Travel but I knew there were people who did that type of work for MI6 and, yes, I was aware they were called Increment. I also confirmed I was aware Bob Bridges had been in the Middle East on operations with Increment after he left the Regiment.

  Toni wanted to run some names and facts past me. First was Brian McNeil. The name was only vaguely familiar and no, he wasn’t on the Iranian Embassy operation. Apparently, McNeil was another name from the same Black Suit Travel organisation. It employed another man she wanted to know about: Chris Grady. Grady I did remember – a Sergeant from ‘D’ squadron during the early 1980s. Grady hadn’t been at the Embassy either.

  ‘Are you in touch with any of the other men on the Increment team?’ she asked.

  ‘No … I lost contact with everyone from those days, apart from Kevin … although I bumped into Bob Bridges a couple of times after we both joined the Met, but we didn’t keep in touch.’

  ‘Have you ever met a man called Howard Green?’

  My hesitation and the resulting look on Toni’s face gave things away. The answer was yes. I did know a man called Howard Green.

  ‘How do you know him, Finlay?’ she asked.

  I stalled. ‘I’m not sure how to explain. About the same height as me, skinny?’

  ‘Sounds like him. Let’s continue with the honesty, shall we? I’ll be open with you and, in turn, you tell me the truth.’

  ‘Sounds good to me. Why are you asking about Howard?’

  ‘I know there is a connection between you, him, the dead cops and Afghanistan.’

  ‘Is there really?’ I asked. ‘And how might that be?’

  ‘The book … Cyclone. The author changes names but it’s pretty clear to me that it was Howard Green pulling the strings of the Increment team that were sent in to deliver the CIA weapons.’