Two FBI thrillers: Before Nightfall and Mistake Creek

by Rachel Amphlett

Emrah shook his head. ‘Unfortunately there was a malfunction. There is no recording. My second-in-command is currently interviewing the officer that was on duty at the time.’

  Finn pushed himself back until he was sitting on the desk, then leaned forwards. He closed his eyes, blocking out the other men’s voices.

  His whole body ached with exhaustion, the tension locking his muscles. Fuelled by strong coffee and excess adrenaline, the helplessness overwhelmed every thought. He opened his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face.

  ‘How watertight is your investigating team, Emrah?’

  The intelligence officer glared at Finn, before his expression softened. ‘It is something that has crossed my mind,’ he said. ‘That is why I am here in an unofficial capacity.’ He sighed. ‘Corruption is easily paid for – I am doing all I can to find out if I have a traitor in my ranks.’

  He walked across to Finn and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I know how hard this must be for you, Mr Scott. I have seen how you look when you talk of her. We have had our differences, but please – be assured I am doing everything I can to find Ms Foster.’

  ‘I know. Thanks.’

  Emrah smiled, and turned to Steve. ‘Keep monitoring Mr Hart’s telephones. I will contact you as soon as I have any news.’

  After he had gone, Steve spun on his heel to face Finn. ‘Okay, let’s investigate those other businesses.’

  Finn pushed himself off the desk and passed the asset list to Steve. ‘Alright. There are two more car repair workshops and an internet café. According to the records, Mustafa co-owned that with a younger cousin.’

  ‘And the younger cousin must be more business-savvy. From these figures, it looks like that business has been propping up the other three.’

  ‘Well, they’re not going to hide Kate at a café, are they?’

  ‘Depends if it’s got a basement, or more rooms above it,’ said Steve. He pointed at the laptop. ‘Get onto the satellite imagery software – let’s check out all three properties.’

  Finn minimised the screen he had open, and then selected the software. Typing in the address for the internet café, he blinked to counteract the mild feeling of vertigo as the programme zoomed in to show an aerial shot of the neighbourhood. He then manoeuvred the controls until he was at street level, looking directly at the building.

  ‘That’s definitely a no-go,’ he said. ‘Single storey – it’s not much bigger than a shed. Newsagent next door – jewellery store on the other side.’

  Steve shook his head. ‘No – she won’t be held there, you’re right. Too much passing foot traffic. Okay – check the two garages.’

  Finn typed in the first address while Steve hovered at his shoulder.

  The image appeared, and once more, he tweaked the controls so they could view the street. As with the original business, the garage appeared to be derelict, its double workshop closed for business, the single floor above it plain, windows painted over and broken in places. On one side, a warehouse with two panel vans appeared to be open, signage above its doors proclaiming it to be a distribution depot for spices.

  On the other side, an empty building stood, derelict, a faded sign advertising rugs mottled and peeling on its façade.

  ‘Alright, pull up the image for the other garage – see if we can narrow it down between the two.’

  Finn’s hands flew over the keyboard and then he waited impatiently as the image downloaded.

  This time, the garage business seemed busier, its doors open and various vehicles parked in front of it.

  ‘Okay – which one?’ said Finn. ‘Hide her in plain sight above the business which is trading, or at the quieter business?’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Steve, walking to the door. ‘Back in a minute. Don’t touch those two images.’

  Finn drummed his fingers on the desk, his foot tapping on the floor while he waited. He knew better than to interrupt Steve when he had a hunch, but they were running out of time.

  Kaan’s original deadline for the handover for the parts was rapidly approaching, and they’d already shown their hand by raiding the first property. They could only hope that Kaan’s need for the parts outweighed any desire to harm Kate while he could still use her as a bargaining tool.

  He looked up as Steve jogged back into the room and handed him the USB stick.

  ‘Put that into the computer and play the video – I want to watch it again.’

  Finn queued up Kate’s message from Kaan and pressed the ‘play’ icon.

  ‘Scroll through to the last thirty seconds.’

  Finn dragged the mouse along the bottom of the screen.

  ‘Stop – play it from there.’

  The two men watched the end of the message, Kate’s foot tapping out her coded message.

  Finn ignored the trickle of sweat running between his shoulder blades and gripped the desk.

  ‘Play it again – from the same place.’

  Finn watched in silence until the message ended, then turned to face Steve. He frowned when he saw the other man smiling.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s the first garage on the satellite imagery.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Kate told us – she just got her vowels mixed up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Steve leaned over and pointed at the screen, Kate’s image frozen on the replay.

  ‘She didn’t mean ‘space’,’ said Steve. ‘She meant spice.’

  Finn’s head shot round to look at the satellite imagery on the laptop, to the warehouse next door to the garage. ‘She can smell the spices.’

  He turned back to Steve. ‘Kaan’s trying to cover his tracks, isn’t he? He got to Mustafa before Emrah could interview him again.’

  ‘Do we call Emrah?’

  Steve shook his head. ‘No time. And I don’t fancy a repeat of this morning’s disaster if we’re wrong.’

  ‘I’ll go get our gear together.’

  ‘Okay – I’ll grab a couple of Hart’s security guys – see what intel they can give us about that area around the garage. We have to move fast.’

  ‘When do you want to go in?’

  Steve glanced at his watch and then back at Finn, an uneasy expression etched across his face.

  ‘Before nightfall. After that, it’s too easy to move a body.’

  26

  Finn ignored the commotion around him and began methodically setting out the equipment they would need onto the floor around the office.

  Steve had followed suit, although his kit comprised a lot more communications and first aid equipment.

  Finn’s was all weaponry.

  He laid out the knives, gun and stun grenades, and then pushed aside the heavy-duty equipment. He needed to be able to move fast, and too much equipment could mean the difference between a successful mission or a disaster.

  Standing up, he stretched and then made his way over to Hart’s desk which had been swept clear, its contents strewn across the floor. In their place, a large map of the area around the garage and spice warehouse had been laid out, its corners pinned down, black pen marks covering its surface where the men had planned their assault.

  ‘We’re going to have to work quickly once we’re in,’ said Steve. ‘The garage is only a couple of blocks from a quayside. We can’t recce the area before we go otherwise we could alert Kaan that we’re onto him. We have to assume that he’ll have a means of escape – a boat for instance.’

  ‘We could alert the police, ask for a water patrol to be present.’

  Finn glanced at the security man who spoke, then back to Steve. ‘It’s a good idea.’

  ‘We’ll phone Emrah right before we go in. He’s right – if there’s a leak in his department, then we don’t want to alert Kaan to our presence. As the saying goes, better to ask forgiveness after the event…’

  ‘True. And they’ll have water patrols up and down that part of the Bosphorus anyway, so they should be able to get there within minutes.’
<
br />   ‘Have you got the bomb parts?’

  Finn patted the webbing across his bulletproof vest. ‘Here.’

  ‘Put them in the safe.’ Steve checked his watch. ‘We’ve only got a few hours until the deadline expires – we need to move.’

  After running through final tests of their equipment, Finn checked that Hart’s security detail were ready to monitor the phones in their absence. He picked up his backpack and swung it over his shoulder. Standing in the middle of the room, he took a deep breath, before letting it pass his lips.

  ‘You ready?’

  He turned at Steve’s voice, and then nodded. ‘Let’s go.’

  ***

  Finn manoeuvred the car through the late afternoon commuter traffic, the car’s tyres kicking up a cloud of dust which obliterated the view out the back window.

  Steve scrolled through his contacts until he found Emrah’s number and held his thumb over the ‘call’ button.

  ‘Are you ready for this?’

  ‘No. Do it anyway.’

  A dial tone sounded, followed by the sing-song tones of the number being dialled, and then a ring tone filled the vehicle.

  ‘Turn the volume down,’ said Finn. ‘This could hurt.’

  The phone rang three times before the intelligence officer answered.

  ‘Emrah.’

  ‘It’s Steve Orton. I’ve got Finn on speaker with me.’

  ‘What is it? Have you found anything?’

  ‘We think so, yeah.’

  Finn glanced sideways as the man took a breath to psych himself up to deliver the news.

  ‘We went through Rizman’s accounts – turns out he had four businesses. Three garages and an internet café he owned with a cousin.’

  ‘You’re stalling,’ hissed Finn, turning the wheel and overtaking a slow-moving moped.

  Steve held his middle finger up, and then turned his gaze back to the mobile phone in its cradle. ‘We got the wrong garage this morning. Not sure if you got the message from your office when we sent you a copy of Kate’s video yesterday, but she used Morse code to try and tell us where she was.’

  ‘I hadn’t. Go on.’ Emrah’s voice had dropped to a low murmur.

  ‘She got her vowels mixed up in her message. We think – we believe – she’s being kept hostage at another of Mustafa’s garages – next to a spice warehouse near the Zeytinburnu port terminal.’

  Finn swerved the car between two trucks and placed his foot on the accelerator. ‘We’re two minutes out from the target,’ he murmured.

  Steve held up his hand. ‘Emrah?’

  ‘How sure are you?’ asked the intelligence officer.

  ‘We’re on our way there now. It’d be good if you could muster one of your teams to meet us there to help with the take down. A water patrol would be a good idea too.’

  A long silence filled the air.

  Finn stared at the phone. ‘You can feel the ‘fuck off’ vibes from here,’ he whispered.

  Steve leaned forward to check the call was still connected, then sat back in his seat and waited for the onslaught.

  ‘You are on your way there now?’ Emrah exploded. ‘Without permission from me? What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

  Steve rested his head back against his seat and closed his eyes.

  ‘Stand down immediately!’

  ‘No can do, sorry,’ said Steve. ‘We’re fully committed to this operation now.’

  ‘You will do as I say,’ hissed Emrah. ‘You could be killed going in there alone!’

  Finn leaned over and rubbed his finger over the phone’s microphone. ‘Sorry, Emrah, you’re breaking up… What did you say?’

  He looked over at Steve, who winked at him, leaned forward and blew gently across the microphone. ‘We must have entered a low signal area, Emrah – do what you can for us, okay?’

  He pressed the ‘end’ key and leaned back in his seat. ‘That was easier than I thought.’

  ‘We are so going to get our arses kicked if we’re wrong about this.’

  ‘Then let’s hope we’re not wrong. I don’t think we’re going to get a third shot at this, do you?’

  In reply, Finn gritted his teeth, then swung the car a hard left, gunned the engine once to gain some distance from the main road, and then braked hard. He turned the key towards him and checked the rear view mirror.

  Nothing.

  For a moment, both men sat still and listened to the ticking of the engine as it cooled.

  ‘You ready?’

  Finn held up his hands. They shook a little, and his pounding heart ached between his ribs, but he knew he would go on.

  For Kate, he’d do anything.

  ‘Yeah. I’m ready.’

  ‘Come on then.’

  Shouldering their backpacks, the two men checked their guns, made sure they had spare clips within easy reach, and then locked the car and jogged the short distance to the street where the garage business was based.

  Finn slowed as he approached the end of the alleyway, and then peered around the corner of the building. The garage was fifty metres up the road, on his side of the street. The setting sun cast a pink glow over the stonework of the surrounding warehouses as afternoon turned to evening, the sunset eclipsed by the buildings to his rear.

  Steve tapped him on the shoulder. ‘How’s it looking?’

  ‘No-one’s around at the moment. The spice business is all closed up for the day. No cars outside.’

  ‘There’s nobody in the alleyway behind us either. We’d better move quickly.’

  Both men turned as, one by one, muezzins in the distance began the call to prayer.

  ‘Perfect timing,’ said Finn and pulled out an earpiece from his pocket, before fitting it to his right ear. He pressed once on a microphone fixed to his collar.

  ‘Alpha Two to base, can you hear me?’

  ‘Loud and clear.’

  Hart’s head of security was keen to redeem himself after Kate’s kidnapping, volunteering to stay behind and monitor the communications feed on Finn’s laptop, which included video recording via cameras mounted to the men’s armoured vests.

  ‘Any phone calls?’

  ‘Negative. Nothing since you left the office. Haven’t had reports of anyone arriving or leaving the building for the past hour, either.’

  ‘Holed up inside somewhere,’ said Steve. ‘Good.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Finn. ‘We’re going in. Radio silence unless we ask you a question, or you need to tell us something urgent, got that?’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Alpha Two out.’

  Finn turned to Steve. ‘Are we ready?’

  ‘As we’ll ever be.’

  ‘Alright, let’s do this.’

  Finn checked the safety on his gun was in the ‘off’ position, and then led Steve in a crouched run towards the garage, hugging the walls of the buildings as they completed their approach.

  According to the plans which Hart’s security men had found, a side door led to the stairwell inside the building and to the garage workshop beyond.

  Finn, closely followed by Steve, scurried round the side of the building and stood to one side of the closed door.

  He reached out his hand and turned the door knob.

  Locked.

  Steve crouched down, slid his backpack down his arm, and then reached inside and pulled out a set of lock picks.

  Both men had agreed that to enter the building as noisily as the last one, with no support team in place, would have been suicidal. Instead, they planned to use a soft approach until it became absolutely necessary to use force.

  Steve selected a pick, then inserted it into the lock and wriggled it from side to side. As the metal scraped against the rusty insides, a trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face.

  Finn gritted his teeth, and checked over his shoulder. Outside the building, in daylight, they were exposed. They needed to get inside fast.

  He turned at a grunt from Steve, who then smiled as
the lock gave way.

  Finn cocked an eyebrow at him, and he nodded, standing back and readying his weapon.

  Finn turned the door handle, swinging the door outwards, and then both men slipped into the gloom, keeping as low as possible.

  Blinking rapidly to adjust his eyesight, Finn turned his head left and right, getting his bearings. He pointed towards a double set of doors, guessing that they led to the garage workshop. As Steve covered their backs, he slowly pushed the door open, keeping low.

  A soft blue hue filled the space, the dirty windows filtering the waning sunlight and illuminating the workshop.

  The men crouched and entered the garage, watching for movement in the shadows. They walked a quick perimeter of the space, careful not to touch anything for fear of making a noise to alert their enemy, and returned to the double doors.

  ‘Anything?’

  Steve shook his head. ‘No tangoes, but there’s a bloody great homemade bomb sat over in the corner.’

  ‘Is it armed?’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘Okay, let’s keep going.’

  ‘Hang on.’

  Steve bent down, picked up a length of metal piping and slipped it through the handles of the closed doors to stop anyone from following them through the garage. He turned and grinned at Finn.

  ‘I hate surprises.’

  27

  Kate bit her lip and sawed at the mortar with the nail.

  Minutes ago, the sharp end of the nail had split away, worn through by the pressure she had to exert to work away at the wall.

  Cursing, she’d pulled out the broken piece with her little finger, and then went back to work. Frustratingly, she could feel the iron bolt becoming looser, and managed to wriggle it from side to side, yet it still wasn’t ready to yield.

  She squinted in the fading light as the sunset tipped over the back of the building. She couldn’t stop. Her life depended on escaping from her captors – and soon.

  The argument downstairs had fallen silent hours ago, a door had slammed shut, and she’d heard a car engine power away.

  Yet they still hadn’t returned with any food or fresh water.

  She wiped the sweat from her eyes, pushed her hair out of the way and pulled the nail free, bending closer to the wall to check her progress.