Underdogs

by Jack Fiske

  “Wipe it down,” Walker shouted after him. “I don’t want any prints on it.”

  Now that he knew what was happening, Walker’s mood had calmed a little and he was starting to think.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said, turning his back on Quinn and staring out of the window.

  Ten minutes later, they were going over things for a second time when Spencer returned.

  “Where have you put it?” Walker demanded.

  “In the barn,” Spencer replied. “It’s well out of sight and I’ve put a tarpaulin over it.”

  “Good. I’ll get one of the trucks to come down and get rid of it. We’ll dump it up north somewhere, so there’s no link to this place.”

  Walker checked his watch, looking decidedly calmer as the minutes ticked by.

  “It seems your stop for lunch might have been useful. You must have been off the road when they were stopping cars. By the time you got started again, the search area had widened out.”

  “What are we going to do?” Spencer asked, under the impression that he’d missed the decision.

  Bryant butted in, “We need to get rid of the woman and her kid Mr Walker. They can i.d. all of us.”

  Spencer looked from Walker to Quinn and then back to Walker. He wasn’t happy that the woman had seen him that morning.

  Walker didn’t answer for a moment.

  “I need to think. You two get out. Go and check outside and make sure there’s no sign that anyone followed the car back. I want to speak to Liam.”

  Once Bryant and Spencer had left, Walker turned to Quinn.

  “We’ve got another problem. That box Tony picked up is a fake. Ronnie’s been on the phone. Flores says it looks good, really good, but it’s not the real thing. He reckons that to produce such a good copy in the time available, they’d have needed help from the M.O.D.”

  Quinn swore. “So it’s been a waste of time then. Now we’ve got to dig ourselves out of the mess before it all caves in around us.”

  “Maybe,” Walker said.

  “What do you mean maybe? You’re surely not going to have a second go at it?”

  “No I’m not,” Walker said emphatically. “The whole situation is too bloody hot. We need to get rid of the evidence and get ourselves as far away from this as we can.”

  Walker paced back and forth in front of the window as he went through the options.

  “The fake electronics might fool our buyer,” he said, thinking aloud rather than speaking to Quinn, “but that’s a dangerous game, particularly with the Arabs. No, I think we’ll need to play it straight and see if we can strike a deal on what we’ve got.”

  Quinn nodded. Not that Walker would care whether he agreed with him or not.

  “Turner’s wife and kid might be worth something,” he ventured.

  Walker didn’t even consider it. “No. Too risky. I want rid of them.”

  He stopped pacing, having made a decision.

  “In fact I want rid of them today. If the police get their act together or get lucky, they could find this place. That car has been in and out of here regularly over the last few days. People are bound to have seen it. No, I want them out of here and nothing to show that they’ve ever been near the place. We’ll get rid of them at the same time as the car.”

  Quinn steeled himself for what was coming next. He knew what Walker was going to say.

  “I want you to do it Liam. We’ll do it the same way we did the Scotsman.”

  Quinn scowled and turned away so that Walker didn’t see. The Scotsman. Why the hell did it have to be like the Scotsman?

  The Scotsman had been a major headache for them two years ago, at the time Walker was involved in a drugs deal. It turned out that he was working undercover for the Met. and had unearthed information that could put both of them away for a long stretch. Liam and John’O had done it between them. John’O had strangled him with a length of nylon rope, while Liam held him down. He could still see the look on the man’s face as he twisted frantically in their grip, clawing at the blue nylon, knowing that death was only a moment away.

  They’d disposed of the body on one of the company building sites. That had been the easy bit. They just dropped him into a hole and poured a section of foundation on top of him. There was a block of flats there now. The residents didn’t have a clue that there was a grave beneath their feet.

  “Liam!” Walker said.

  Quinn pushed the memory aside and concentrated on the matter in hand. “O.k. I’ll do it. I’m not doing the kid though.”

  Walker shrugged.

  “Bryant can do the kid. He’s not as squeamish as you.”

  “When?” Quinn asked.

  “Tonight. I’ll get Kenny and John’O to bring the flat-bed down and we’ll move the car once it gets dark. I want it done by the time they’re ready to leave.”

  Walker smiled a cold empty smile. “Good, that’s sorted. You can let Bryant know. I’ll phone Kenny to make the arrangements.”

  Walker held the door open for him. An unspoken request for him to go and tell the others.

  Quinn stepped outside into the afternoon sun and looked across at the annexe. Despite the warmth, he shivered slightly at the thought of what lay ahead.

  Jim was still on the road, driving back to Ringwood when the phone rang again on the seat beside him. He picked it up and held it to his ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Jim.” It was Stephen’s voice. “Where are you going?”

  Jim was surprised how calm his father-in-law sounded. He felt far from calm himself, especially with no idea what they did next.

  “I’m on my way back. I’ll be with you in twenty minutes or so.”

  “No, don’t come back to the office,” Stephen said. “I think I know where they are.”

  “How?” Jim asked, a trace of hope obvious in his voice.

  Stephen explained. While Mark followed the position of the tracker units on the PC, Stephen had been on another machine working on the telephone number. It had been a long job, but it looked as if it had paid off. The main problem he said, was that with every prepay phone there is no address record and no way to tell who is using it. However, the same isn’t true for the numbers that are called. What Stephen had eventually managed to do, was to hack into the computer system of three separate phone companies and also into the BT network. The BT system had been the problem, but was also the most important. Once he’d done that, he had to write his own program to extract the information that he needed and then run it on their own mainframe. Back at the office, the rumour mill was working overtime, speculating on what was happening. Everyone had been asked to down tools so that the entire system could be given over to the problem. The machinery had hummed away, with Stephen watching, as it traced every number that the mobile had phoned within the last month. Then, for every number that it found, it went on to trace all the telephone numbers that had been phoned from those numbers. The final step was to cross match the full list to find those numbers that were repeated and with what regularity.

  Once he was finished, Stephen had gone down the list pulling more detail manually from the phone company records. The top five numbers included a building company in Camden, a residential address in a respectable London suburb, a firm of accountants, a farm on the edge of Salisbury Plain and another mobile phone.

  “So you think it’s the farm?” Jim asked, having listened to what his father-in-law had to say.

  “I think there’s a good chance. It’ll take you about an hour and a half in the car, possibly two, but it’s definitely worth checking.”

  Jim agreed. It might be a long shot, but what else had they got. There was a parking area coming up on the left and he pulled off the road and stopped, so that he could talk.

  “Where is it?” he asked, reaching for the road atlas.”

  “It’s in the middle of nowhere, on the A360. The nearest village that’s marked on the map is a place called Wescomb Down.”

  Jim foll
owed the A360 until he found it. It really was in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing for miles except woods, farmland and a couple of minor roads. If someone wanted a remote location to hold a couple of prisoners, it would certainly fit the bill.

  “You’re right. I’ll go and have a look.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Stephen asked.

  “Just sit tight. I’ll let you know what I find when I get there. Maybe you should go home to be with Marion. I’ll keep in touch with Mark by phone and he can track me on the computer system.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Stephen agreed. “Marion will be worried sick. It’s not fair of me to leave her on her own.”

  “Has anyone been asking for me at the office?” Jim asked.

  “No. Who?”

  “Trent and O’Hara said that The Firm were sending someone round. If they do turn up, you don’t know where I am. Tell them I’ve gone home or something.”

  Someone interrupted in the background.

  “Mark says what about your phone?”

  “Better not answer it,” Jim said, then thought better of it. “No, we can’t do that. He’ll need to answer it in case the kidnappers phone. If it’s MI5, tell him to just cut them off.”

  “I’ll pass you over,” Stephen said. “He wants a word.”

  Mark checked what Jim wanted him to do, then having sorted out the matter of the phone, they agreed to speak when Jim got to the farm. Stephen would go home and wait with Marion. Mark would keep him informed and Stephen could follow Jim’s movements at home on his own PC.

  Moments later, Jim was on the move again, trying to decide the quickest way to get to the Salisbury road without going through Ringwood.

  Back at Henson’s Farm, Susan was worried. It was nearly four and they’d been alone all day. No one had been near them since the remains of their breakfast had been cleared away and there was definitely something going on. The red indicator light on the camera above the door ticked regularly on and off, but she was sure that for the last hour there had been no one watching at the other end. Earlier that afternoon, whoever was watching them had been summoned to the main house and she was certain that they had been on their own since. An hour ago a car had driven into the farmyard and they’d heard raised voices outside. She couldn’t make out what had been said, but it didn’t sound as if the new arrivals had brought good news. Ten minutes later, the front door of the annexe had banged as their guard returned and a little later they’d heard the sound of another car outside, or perhaps the same one leaving again.

  Millie was starting to show the strain of their ordeal. She just lay on the bed and said nothing. Susan had one arm round her, hugging her protectively, but she didn’t know what to do to keep her spirits up. She was having problems in that department herself. It was only the fact that Millie was there and she needed to be strong for her, that she hadn’t broken down. She blinked quickly at the thought to avoid a tear rolling down her cheek, stroked Millie’s hair and hugged her a little tighter. Things would be alright. They had to be. But a little voice inside her head insisted on interrupting saying – no things won’t, you’ve seen them, they can’t let you go, you know that.

  Jim was kept within the speed limit as he drove. The traffic wasn’t heavy, but there was enough of it and he didn’t make good time. The road as far as Salisbury was a clear run, but after that he seemed to get caught behind one lorry after another. It was after four by the time he got to his destination, or at least to within a mile of it. He was parked up two hundred yards beyond the turning that would take him past the farm, consulting the road atlas once more. Unfortunately, the scale was far too large and it didn’t tell him much, other than to confirm that he was in the right place. Given the choice, Jim would have liked a decent Ordnance Survey map, but neither of the two that he’d picked up that morning covered this area. According to the road atlas, he should be able to drive past the farm and keep going in the direction of a small village two or three miles away. His best bet was to do just that – drive by and have a look.

  He closed the atlas, checked the revolver was in reach and then swung the car round in a u-turn to drive back to the junction. There he took a right turn onto what was still a fairly good road and drove slowly towards the village, watching the road ahead for the farm turning.

  It didn’t take long to find it. A few hundred yards from the junction, he passed a gravel track with a small signpost at the entrance reading ‘Henson’s Farm – Private’. Jim could make out the farm buildings in the distance, set well back from the road. To the left of the track a few cows grazed quietly in open fields, whilst to the right there was a solid wall of conifer trees, stretching the length of the track and disappearing into the distance beyond the buildings. There was nowhere to stop without attracting attention, so he drove on until the view of the farm was cut off by the trees.

  The woods looked quite extensive. There was still no end to them by the time Jim stopped about half a mile further on. The trees had thinned a little and had changed to a mixture of conifers and broad-leaves and he had just missed a dirt track that led into them on his left.

  Jim put the Toyota into reverse, turned round and with one arm over the back of his seat, drove back to where he could see the break in the trees.

  The track into the woods was deeply rutted and very muddy, but the Toyota coped with it well. Thirty yards in, the track forked and an area had been cleared on the left, which was criss-crossed with old tyre tracks. Jim eased the car out of the ruts and switched off the engine. The left hand track looked like it led in the direction of the farm, but he was reluctant to take the car, preferring instead a more silent approach.

  Before leaving the car, Jim checked what he needed. He still had the rucksack that he’d hastily packed that morning. It was hard to believe he’d done that just a few hours ago. The rucksack still held the box of shells, his green, rubber-armoured binoculars, the two useless Ordnance Survey maps and Marion’s kitchen knife. Jim had taken the revolver out earlier, but had found that it wouldn’t fit in his pocket. While trying to force it, he had managed to rip the stitching and the gun had now found a home for itself between the lining and the outer shell. In his other pocket were the two GPS units. The one that was switched on went into his left trouser pocket and the other, still marked with its red insulating tape, went into his right.

  The wheel wrench still lay on the passenger seat with Mark’s mobile phone and Jim picked up both and dropped the wrench into the rucksack. It took him a moment to discover how to switch off the ring tone on the phone then, before he put it away, he phoned Mark to let him know that he’d arrived.

  Mark answered straight away.

  “Mark?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Jim. I’ve just got here.”

  “I know,” Mark replied.

  Jim looked at the circle of open sky above him. It was strange to think of a satellite somewhere up there which could pinpoint his position to within a couple of metres.

  “I’m about half a mile away,” Jim said. “There’s a wood that runs right next to the farm. I’ll get in as close as I can on foot and see if I can see what’s going on.”

  “Be careful,” Mark said.

  “Don’t worry,” Jim replied. “I’m not taking any chances.”

  “We’ve had a phone call,” Mark said.

  “From MI5?” Jim asked.

  “Yes.”

  “On the mobile?”

  “No, they phoned the office for you.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I think it was someone you know. Archie Long he said. He’s on his way down. I told him I didn’t know where you were, but we were expecting you back later this afternoon.”

  Jim thought for a moment. Should he phone him? No, better not to for the time being. He would have a look at the farm first and then decide how to play it.

  “Thanks Mark, that was good. If he turns up, make him comfortable and ask him to wait. I’ll phon
e you once I’ve had a look at the place.”

  “Will do,” Mark confirmed.

  Jim hung up, then put the phone in a pocket of the rucksack before locking the car.

  The left hand track looked promising. It went in the right direction and Jim was less likely to be seen than if he went by the road. Here the woods were a mixture of deciduous and conifer trees and it looked as if the track had been made by a tractor, or perhaps a lorry, when the woods had been thinned. Every so often there were stumps where trees had been felled, although it looked as if the work had been carried out a long time ago.

  As he got nearer to the farm, the track began to peter out and the native trees ended at a barbed wire fence, beyond which there was nothing but dark green conifer. These were planted much closer together and what little space there was beneath them was dark and forbidding, with the interlocking branches shutting out much of the light from above.

  Jim followed the barbed wire until he thought he might be level with the farm buildings and then climbed the fence, forcing his way through the trees, trying to be as quiet as possible. There was the occasional snap of a twig as he made his way forward, but for the most part his progress was quiet – partly due to the thick carpet of pine needles that lay underfoot.

  After a hundred yards, Jim could see the edge of the plantation ahead, where light streamed in beneath the branches. He stopped no more than fifteen feet from the edge.

  Lying flat on his stomach, he could see out between the remaining trunks to open fields beyond. There was another barbed wire fence at this side and beyond that, a field of cattle. The farm buildings were nowhere to be seen, so he crawled forward on hands and knees until he was just behind the tall grass that grew right up to the wire.

  To his right were open fields, whilst to the left, no more than fifty yards away, was a stone built house overlooking a large garden and the countryside beyond.

  Jim retreated and carefully made his way towards the house, moving slowly, parallel to the edge of the wood. After sixty or seventy paces, he stopped and made his way back to the wire. This time he was level with the buildings themselves. He could see that the nearest was in fact the farm house and that it stood at the back of a large yard, enclosed at the far end by a barn and at the opposite side by a row of outbuildings.