Underdogs

by Jack Fiske

  Stephen smiled briefly. “Pretty good. Luck must have been on my side because there was only a 50% chance that the number would be on a network that I could access. Thankfully, it turns out that it is and I’ve managed to get a copy of the billing information on disc, which I can hand over to the police when the time comes.”

  “When will that be?” Mark asked.

  “Soon I hope,” Stephen replied, putting a hand on the fake K2 unit. “We need to discuss it with Jim, but I think we should hand this over to the kidnappers and if they don’t release Susan and Millie, we give the police what information we have and let them get on with it. Speaking of which, we ought to get home so that we’re there when the Irishman phones.”

  Stephen started to gather up his things and pack them away in his briefcase, whilst Mark went to find a cardboard box to put the K2 unit in.

  He reappeared at the door two minutes later, his coat and a cardboard box tucked under one arm. “Good luck with the phone call. I’ll call you in the morning once the parts have arrived and let you know that it’s finished.”

  “Thanks Mark. It’s good of you.”

  Stephen waited for Marion, who was rinsing the coffee cups in the other room.

  “Ready?” she asked, as she reappeared a moment later.

  “Yes,” he said, picking up his briefcase and switching the lights off.

  It was a strange feeling to be going home. It was just after five-thirty and anyone who was still in the office would be packing up to go and spend a perfectly normal evening with their families. It could so easily have been just another day at the office, instead of which Stephen was going home to wait for a phone call from the people who had kidnapped his daughter and a call from his son in law, who was waiting for an IRA gunman, armed with an old service revolver and one of Marion’s kitchen knives.

  SIX

  Jim slowly opened one eye and when he felt the room spinning, he quickly closed it again. He was lying on his side on what felt like a bed. His mouth was incredibly dry, he had pins and needles in his left arm which was pinned beneath him and the side of his head throbbed steadily where the man on the stairs had hit him. He tried to move his arm to relieve the pins and needles and realised that he couldn’t because his arms were tied behind him at the wrist. Trying to move his foot produced the same result and he could feel that his ankles were also tied. He lay still for another five minutes, giving himself some time to recover and then tried again. The room still spun, but more slowly now. He shut his eyes and gave it a little longer to see if it would stop entirely. The third time he tried, the room had indeed stopped and he could make out his surroundings. He was lying on one of the single beds in O’Hara’s room facing the wall and he could see that his ankles had been tied with what looked like plastic cable ties. Jim twisted his wrist to see if he could loosen the ties there, but stopped as they bit more deeply into his skin.

  “I see you’re awake,” a voice said behind him.

  Jim rolled onto his back and immediately wished that he hadn’t. He felt slightly sick, his head hurt like nobody’s business and his left arm felt as if it were on fire as the circulation returned to it.

  “Can I have a drink of water?” he asked.

  O’Hara was sitting on the other bed watching him. “Sure you can, providing you promise to behave while we have a chat.”

  Jim nodded slightly in agreement and O’Hara disappeared into the small bathroom. There was the sound of running water and he came back with a tumbler full of water, which he held to Jim’s lips. Jim managed a couple of swallows before O’Hara put the glass down on the cabinet beside the bed.

  “Thanks,” Jim mumbled.

  O’Hara leant over him and checked that his hands and feet were secure. “You just lie there for a few minutes until you come round properly and then I want to talk to you.”

  Jim nodded. O’Hara picked up the small kettle that stood on a tray by the other bed and went back to the bathroom to fill it. He returned, plugged the kettle in and turned over the two plain white cups that stood on the tray beside it.

  “Tea or coffee?” he asked.

  “Tea,” Jim replied.

  “How do you take it?”

  “Milk and one sugar.”

  “There’s no proper milk. You’ll have to make do with a couple of these UHT cartons.”

  O’Hara put two tea bags into a matching white teapot and a few minutes later poured in the boiling water. While it brewed, O’Hara stood by the window with his back to Jim and watched the comings and goings at the front of the hotel. Jim lay still and watched O’Hara’s back. His head throbbed a little less and the circulation was coming back in his left arm.

  “What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” O’Hara replied. “How are you feeling?”

  “Well my head’s throbbing where your friend hit me, but apart from that I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m afraid you asked for it. That’s what you get if you start pushing people around at gunpoint. Anyway, you shouldn’t expect any sympathy from me. Not after that knee to the groin.”

  O’Hara put one foot on the edge of the bed and took out the knife from the sheath, which was once more strapped to his lower leg. Jim just looked at it and waited for whatever was to come.

  “For God’s sake, I’m not going to stab you,” O’Hara said. “You’re only tied up so you don’t do anything stupid. If I cut your wrists free will you sit quietly until you’ve heard what I have to say?”

  Jim couldn’t think of any reason why he shouldn’t. Not that he had any choice, so he agreed that he would.

  Before he cut the ties, O’Hara poured himself a cup of tea and put it on the window sill. Then, picking up Jim’s gun, he broke it open, checked that there was a live round in each chamber, closed it and transferred it to his left hand.

  “Just a precaution,” he said. “But don’t think that I won’t use it if I need to.”

  He leant over the bed, cut through the plastic ties that fastened Jim’s wrists and ankles and then took a step backwards to sit in the single chair, the empty bed between them – far enough away that Jim couldn’t make a sudden move to overpower him without risking a bullet.

  Jim sat up, which made his head throb even more and he swung his legs over the side of the bed into a sitting position. Putting one hand to his head, he could feel a lump the size of a golf ball, but nothing seemed to be broken.

  “You’ll live,” O’Hara said. “Help yourself to tea if you want one.”

  Jim took up the offer and sat down with his cup facing O’Hara.

  “What did your friend hit me with?”

  O’Hara laughed, although the laughter didn’t seem to touch his eyes. “A cricket bat. You’re lucky it was still in its case, otherwise it would have done you a lot more damage.”

  “If you call that luck, I can probably do without it,” Jim replied. “How on earth did he know I was here?”

  O’Hara smiled slightly. “The wonders of modern technology I’m afraid. I had my phone in my pocket and his number is programmed into it. When I turned round and you had a gun on me, all I did was to hold down one number and it dialled him automatically. He told me afterwards that he could make out most of the conversation until you made me turn out my pockets. I switched it off then before I tossed it on the bed.”

  Jim felt stupid. The possibility hadn’t even occurred to him when O’Hara had thrown the phone down on the bed along with his wallet and car keys.

  “So your friend not only knew you were in trouble, but he knew I had a gun as well.”

  “That’s right,” O’Hara replied. “What he didn’t know though, was who you were. You’re lucky he only used the cricket bat on you.”

  Jim took a sip of his tea. “So now what?”

  “It’s up to you,” O’Hara replied. “I can assure you that we don’t mean you or your family any harm.”

  “Who are ‘we’?” Jim asked.

  “Let me explain.” O’
Hara put the gun down on the arm of the chair, but left it pointing in Jim’s direction as he picked up his own cup of tea. “What I told you earlier is absolutely true. I do work for the Irish Security Services and we are after a gang of blackmailers. Unfortunately, they have already been successful in getting hold of a rather sensitive piece of equipment in Ireland and we need to get it back and rather quickly, before they manage to sell it on. We know that they’ve been commissioned to obtain it by an Arab organisation based in Saudi and we’re getting some intelligence from the Arab end because we’ve managed to buy off someone in their organisation. Unfortunately, it’s not one of our own people, so the information is rather expensive and it isn’t entirely reliable.”

  “So how does my family come to be involved?” Jim asked.

  “Just bad luck I’m afraid. Your company is working on another part of the same system for the M.O.D. The gang are after that and if they get it, they’ll have enough to sell it on to the Middle East for quite a price.”

  “So why the M.O.D. if the system is being manufactured in Ireland?”

  “It’s an E.U. project. Most of the technical work is being done in the U.K. but an Irish firm that specialises in laser technology is manufacturing one of the components. If it becomes common knowledge that we’ve lost our part of the hardware, there will be hell to pay.”

  Jim said nothing. It looked as if the M.O.D. knew very well that something was going on, or they wouldn’t have picked up their unit from the company last week.

  “Who’s the guy that hit me?”

  “He’s a field agent with MI5 – name’s Charlie Trent. You’ve still got friends in MI5 haven’t you? Maybe you should give them a ring and check that what I’m telling you is true.”

  Jim took another drink of his tea. “Maybe I should.” He was starting to feel better and the throbbing in his head was beginning to ease off.

  “What is this system anyway, that it’s worth all this trouble?”

  O’Hara laughed, but again it didn’t extend as far as his eyes. “Don’t tell me your company is working on it and you don’t know what it does.”

  “All I know is that it’s a piece of M.O.D. hardware and there’s a bug in the software somewhere.”

  O’Hara seemed to find the situation quite amusing. “It’s hard to believe isn’t it, but I suppose the M.O.D. only needs to give you information that’s relevant to the problem that needs to be fixed.”

  “So are you going to tell me?” Jim asked a little impatiently.

  “Will you keep the information confidential?”

  “No,” Jim replied. “Not if it affects the safety of my wife and daughter.”

  O’Hara thought for a second or two. “Fair point,” he conceded. “I’m hoping you’ll agree to work with us, rather than against us though, so I’ll tell you anyway.”

  He leaned forward in the chair and put his empty cup down on the single bed nearest to him.

  “It’s a system that’s designed to protect vehicles from laser guided bombs. It’s a while ago now, but I expect you saw all the video clips on the news when the Gulf war was on. Planes dropping so-called smart bombs from 3,000 feet that are guided onto specific targets with a laser tracking system. The propaganda would have you believe that they can pick out military targets and destroy them, without touching any of the surrounding buildings.”

  “I’ve seen them.” Jim nodded.

  “Know how they work?” O’Hara asked.

  “No, not really.”

  “Well, the bombs themselves have a small computer built into them and a control system that moves their tail planes to alter their direction as they fall. The plane targets a vehicle or a building with a laser, which is locked onto the target as they fly past. The bomb detects the reflected light from the target and its simple computer system alters the bomb’s flight path so that it homes in on the laser signal.

  “So this system disrupts that?” Jim asked.

  O’Hara nodded. “That and a bit more. The equipment we’ve lost is one of the detectors and you had the brains of the system. The detector sits on top of the vehicle or on top of a building and picks up the laser signal when the plane locks onto it. The targeting lasers are pulsed and each one has a different code, so a plane can theoretically attack more than one vehicle at a time, using several lasers with different codes. The detector unit that’s been stolen picks up the laser signal and passes it to the processing unit. The processing unit works out the code, runs a lot of calculations and then does three things. Firstly, it passes the code to a laser generator unit, which drops off the back of the vehicle or sits a little distance away from a building if it’s a fixed site. This then sends a signal as if it has been lit up like a Christmas tree with the targeting laser. Secondly, the unit sends a jamming signal to interfere with the real laser. The idea is that the bomb detects the decoy, not the real target and it drops harmlessly behind the vehicle, or away from the building, where it blows up the decoy.”

  “So what’s the third thing?” Jim asked.

  “Ah, that’s the most important bit. The third thing is that the computer can target the plane as it flies over. It uses information from the plane’s own targeting laser to work out where the plane is, what speed it’s going at and what bearing it is on, then it can pass that information to a missile or an anti aircraft system.”

  Jim thought of the implications for a moment or two. “So the kidnappers really do just want the box of electronics.”

  “That’s right,” O’Hara confirmed. “But I can’t let you hand it over to them.”

  “I don’t see how you can stop me,” Jim replied.

  O’Hara looked at Jim and for the first time he noticed some expression on O’Hara’s face. He wasn’t sure whether it was satisfaction or something else.

  “I’m afraid we can, or at least MI5 can. In the first place, you don’t actually have the unit, because the M.O.D. picked it up from your office at the end of last week. Secondly, you’re still dependent on MI5 to protect you and your family from IRA reprisals. If you don’t want details to leak out about who you really are and where you live, you’ll want to cooperate with us.”

  Jim cursed.

  O’Hara shrugged. “It’s nothing personal you understand. If you work with us, there’s no reason why your family should be at any greater risk than they are already. In fact we can give you a lot of help. You of all people should know the resources that MI5 can bring to bear on this sort of problem.”

  Jim stood up and stepped closer to O’Hara. “O.k. I’ll work with you. For the time being anyway. I haven’t got any choice have I?”

  “No not really,” O’Hara agreed.

  “So are you going to keep covering me with that gun or what?”

  “I guess not.” O’Hara put the gun down on the window sill and pushed it out of reach. “I think we understand each other well enough. You want your wife and daughter back. I need to use whatever steps are necessary to prevent the K2 unit from falling into the wrong hands. Why don’t we dispense with the ill feeling and see if we can get along? You help us and we’ll do our utmost to make sure you get your wife and daughter back unharmed.”

  Jim put a hand up to feel the lump above his ear. His head was beginning to throb again and he had the beginnings of a headache. He really needed to think clearly to take all of this in.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got any aspirin?” he asked.

  “There’s a box of Paracetamol in the sponge bag by the sink. Help yourself.”

  Jim walked through to where O’Hara’s toiletries lay on the shelf in the bathroom and helped himself to a couple of the capsules, which he swallowed with a mouthful of water from the cold tap.

  Coming back into the bedroom he saw that O’Hara hadn’t moved from his seat by the window. “So what do you intend doing?”

  “Well, the K2 processor isn’t at risk for the time being. However, we do need to recover the detector unit and stop the people involved before they can pass it
on or do us any more damage. That means we need to draw the gang out into the open.”

  Jim sat down on the edge of the bed again. “Tell me what you know about them so far?”

  “We’ve got quite a lot on the three main players. The top man is a guy called Colin Walker. He’s a well known figure in the London underworld and as far as we can tell, he’s involved in all sorts of criminal activities. Nothing has ever been pinned on him. He’s far too careful. Most of his dirty work is done by an Irishman called Liam Quinn who’s on his payroll. I’ve also got a name for their Arab contact from our informant on the inside – a man called Mohammed Musa. What we don’t know is where any of them are at the moment, or when the hand over is going to take place.”

  “So if you do recover the hardware, what about the gang? Haven’t they still got something on your Irish businessman?”

  “True,” O’Hara confirmed. “To be honest it would be a lot better for all concerned if they weren’t around to cause us any more problems.”

  “In prison you mean?”

  “Not necessarily,” O’Hara replied. “You know the sort of things that go on in this line of work. Whatever happens to them, we want this one sewn up tight. My instructions are that there are to be no loose ends.”

  Jim didn’t like the sound of it. What would ‘no loose ends’ mean for anyone unlucky enough to be caught up in the middle of it?

  O’Hara walked over to the chest of drawers that stood against the far wall and picked up a pen and paper. “Now that I’ve told you our involvement, perhaps you can bring me up to date with what has been happening at your end. How on earth did you know we were working on the case?”

  Jim thought quickly. How much did he want to tell O’Hara? His instincts told him to keep as much as possible to himself and only to pass on information that was absolutely necessary. He still wanted to check on O’Hara’s story and even after he had done that, he would still have to be very cautious in how far he was prepared to trust him. After all, the security services’ main priority would be to recover the hardware and to deal with the men involved, not his wife and daughter. Granted, they would help in the matter of Susan and Millie if they could, but Jim had seen for himself what could happen to innocent people caught up in the middle of this type of operation.