“That’s the hope,” James agreed.
“Well, it’s not going to be just a hope for long!” interjected Derek with an excitement that indicated he was finally getting to the point of his visit. “I think your dreams are about to come true. Your preliminary report on the Sub-Saharan Collaboration has been officially reviewed, and the headline is that the top brass in Brussels love it. They want you to finish it up pronto and head over there personally to discuss it! Congratulations, James. I knew you could do it.”
Ecstatically, James jumped up to receive the congratulatory handshake with a wide grin. “Thank you!”
“No need to thank me. It’s only your hard work that’s done it. In fact, I’m not even sure how you were able to pull it off. It’s almost like you’ve been planning to take over the continent for years!”
“Well,” James replied confidently, “one has to start somewhere.”
Chapter 24
“Hello.” A thick, brutish voice answered the phone before the second ring.
“Do you have the tablets yet?” asked a high familiar voice as smooth as silk and cold as ice.
“Not yet. We lost the trail after they left the hotel.” The heavily accented words fell to a wet, over-exerted breathing, like a hungry animal slavering in the dark. A pregnant silence ensued from the other end—a storm restraining its power.
Finally, the female voice answered, sternly, but under cool control.
“Fine. I’ll keep my people on their credit card and passport movement and see if anything comes up. Until then, you’ve got another problem. We’ve finished combing through the encrypted data from Roland’s laptop and found a name: Frank Grimes. Does that mean anything to you?”
“No, Ms. Pale. I don’t—”
“Well, you should,” the cool demeanor finally gave way, “since he was with Roland the night you caught him!”
“I didn’t see—”
“I’m watching the security footage right now. Just before you blared across the bus stop that night, Roland had been meeting with someone and passed him a file. We took an image and scanned it through facial recognition. It’s this Frank Grimes. He is journalist for Abby’s Post. Or was…You find him, take all his material, make sure he hasn’t talked to anyone else, and get rid of him. Immediately!”
“Ya, O.K.,” answered Ivan brusquely, but the line had already gone dead.
Chapter 25
It had been two weeks since Frank Grimes had locked himself in the department store bathroom stall. He had stayed in the privy until it was announced that the store was closing for the night. As much as Frank wanted to avoid running into the trouble that might be looking for him, he also wasn’t too keen on spending the night in a department store. Like a cautious mouse, he had made his way home by peeking around every corner and scurrying through the open spaces. He had hailed a cab and was halfway home before he remembered that he had driven to the pub and his car was still parked there on the curb. Oh well, he figured. It will be safe for now.
When he got home he looked at the clock and was shocked to see it heralding 1:30a.m. He had been gone far longer than he had planned. “None of it had gone as I planned,” he grumbled to himself as he threw the folder of papers on the table and busied himself making some tea. But his endeavor was not successful as a violent shaking of his hands suddenly overcame him, his panic renewed. In a frenzy, he rushed around the house, snapping closed all the drapes and triple-checking the locks on the doors and windows. It had all been a mistake. A very bad mistake. And now trouble could be on its way to him right now, ready to bang down his door, confiscate the papers, and silence him.
The papers!
In the terror of his escape, Frank had forgotten about the reason behind it all. He rushed to the kitchen table and stared at the still slightly damp file folder. Several pages had spilled out and lay upon the grainy, hardwood surface. His eyes combed over them in caution, but it only took a few words to pull him completely in. Throwing aside his last vestiges of misgivings, he scooped up the file, hastily turned off the kitchen light, and scampered to his study. It’s safer here, he told himself. The large and bulky second-hand office furniture encumbered by layers of books, newspapers, and paper sheaves provided him with much more refuge than the open floor of the kitchen.
Turning on the smallest lamp he had, Frank had commenced to scan over the information and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. By the time he was finished, he had a better understanding of why Roland would risk his life to expose this, why he had turned to Frank for help, and why Frank could now be in very, very deep trouble.
His options had been limited. He could either stay home and hope nobody would come for him, or he could go about his business and hope nobody would come for him. Going to the police had been out of the question. He wasn’t willing to trust this sensitive information into so many hands, nor was he sure something wouldn’t get leaked in exchange for a payoff. No, this was going to be his story alone.
Being undecided in his full plan on how to proceed, he had called off work for the rest of the week, chalking it up to illness. After grudgingly retrieving his vehicle from the car pound for a hefty fee of £300, Frank spent the rest of the week sequestered in his home delving deeper into the documents, all the while half expecting men in black suits and guns to burst through his door and take him away.
When Monday morning came around, he had been somewhat surprised to find himself still undiscovered. Surely, if someone had been looking for him, they would have found him by now. Perhaps no one had seen him that night, and no one was out looking for him. Maybe he was making up these reasons out of fear. “And besides,” he chided himself, “it’s time to get back to work and stop cowering in here like a frightened beast.” Having made up his mind to get on with life-as-usual, he took the first sigh of relief that he had breathed in several days and donned his second-best work suit.
Outside, the cheery blue sky and busy chirping birds seemed to reinforce that, as long as he proceed with caution, the worst of the bizarre situation was behind him. Thinking back to how it all started, Frank had pictured Roland sitting there on the bus across from him, then again standing in the rainstorm. He had promised to contact him again with more information. Frank wasn’t sure he was willing to risk another meet, but decided it was probably best to wait for word from Roland before doing anything else. So, to help bring himself assurance that he wasn’t sitting on a ticking bomb (though he did not really half believe that) and to get the dangerous information out of the house, he had taken the file folder and external data chip with Roland’s picture on it from his phone, sealed them in a large plastic bag, and hid them in the best place he could think of—in the hollowed trunk of his favorite tree in the nearby park. He had gone back to work that morning as if nothing had happened. And he went the next day, and the next. By the end of the week, he had heard nothing, and wondered if he made it all up. But a quick walk to the park and a peek into the hollow in the trunk assured him that he wasn’t crazy and the story wasn’t over. He just needed to wait a little longer for Roland to contact him again.
But Roland hasn’t reached out, Frank thought for the thousandth time as he stood in line for a coffee at a corner café during a morning office break. It’s been two weeks and no word. Unconsciously, he frowned at the floor as the line shuffled forward, trying to decide his next move. Should he keep waiting, or should he forget Roland and take the risk of exposing the story himself? Admittedly, his slip back into everyday life after his meeting with Roland had been extremely, almost excruciatingly easy, and for the first time Frank had to acknowledge that the cocoon of comfort, consistency, and the mundane which he had wrapped himself in was beginning to present a lack of satisfaction. Having tasted a bit of excitement, although it was rather horrifying at the time, he was left consciously wanting to taste more. He needed a change in his life. A big change. And fortunately for him, the ticket was already in his hand. This story, which he had been working on privately i
n his mind, would cause a huge explosion—his own proverbial shot heard around the world. And he was eager to get the ball rolling. Not just to reap all the financial, social, and career rewards that would follow, he reminded himself nobly. The public needs to know what’s happening, and it’s my duty to inform them. He stepped up to the order counter with a curt nod—more of an assent to his thoughts than a greeting to the barista.
He gave his order, passing across a few pounds with instructions to “keep the change,” and moved down to the pick-up counter. Drumming his fingers while he waited, he spared a casual glance around the shop and stopped upon a flat screen suspended in a corner. The stats of yesterday’s football games were scrolling along the bottom while a video replay of Liverpool’s extraordinary winning goal filled the rest of the screen.
Frank watched with mild interest, but his heart suddenly jolted when the next segment appeared. He wasn’t able to hear the reporter’s words over the café din, but could read clearly enough the words posted in the background.
Death toll from mysterious Rigula virus reaches 80,000.
“Sir. Sir…your coffee?”
Frank could barely hear the young man’s bidding for the thunderous pounding that suddenly jumped to his ears. A horrible thought had clicked into his mind, followed by a barrage of sentiments he had subconsciously been struggling to avoid for the last fortnight; all having to do with the hidden files in his house, and the enigmatic man who gave them to him.
Where was Roland?
Why hadn’t he contacted him again?
Was he waiting until he felt safe… or had something else happened?
Am I still safe?
Feeling as if a spotlight had just been pointed at him, Frank took a tentative step away from the counter and his coffee (the server had given up trying to get his attention) and nervously scanned the room once more. A man in a black hat and sunglasses was facing his direction. Was someone watching him? A man in a cut suit was looking at a paper just a few tables away. Was someone following him?
Unable to take it anymore, Frank rushed to the entrance and burst out of the door. He quickly looked behind to see if anyone had gotten up to follow. No; everyone was still in their seats. His eyes perfunctorily swept the street. Two black cars were parked on the opposite curb, one by a red post box. There didn’t seem to be anything sinister about them, but just to be sure, Frank turned to the left, mingled himself within a passing group of people, and warily headed down the pavement. He had gone about 5 steps when he noticed an out-of-place movement in front of him. Among the sea of heads moving away from him, there was one, perched high upon broad shoulders, moving toward him.
In a split second, his feeble voice of reason (It’s only a coincidence) was mercilessly engulfed in a fiery panic which automatically pushed his body into action. Turning a hasty 180, he sped back up the pavement, his heart hammering in his chest. It took only a second to get back to the café entrance; and it was there reality finally crashed down upon his head.
Chapter 26
The driver’s side door of the black car by the post box flew open, and a lanky man wearing oversized sunglasses and an ill-fitted suit that looked too big for him stepped onto the road. Keeping his dark glasses trained on Frank, the man adjusted his baggy suit jacket and started a casual, but determined walk toward the café. At the same time, the bulk of a man who had been slicing through the pavement crowd like a filleting knife reached the corner and turned toward Frank as well, a sick grin on his face.
There was nothing left for it. Another surge of adrenaline flooded through him, and Frank instantly abandoned himself to it. He took off in a lop-sided sprint across the street and into the neighboring park. Though his lungs immediately ached in protest of his body’s gluttonous demand for oxygen, his legs and arms pumped on like steam-powered pistons as they pushed him across the trimmed grass at breakneck speed.
An indistinguishable shout went up behind him, followed by the sharp slamming of a car door and roar of an accelerating engine. Frank didn’t dare turn around. He was afraid that if he slowed at all, his momentum would break and he’d collapse to the ground. The other end of the park was his goal, and he raced on, goaded by the fear for his life. Sweat poured from his skin, soaking his clothes and blurring his eyes; all the while, every painful inch of his body howled desperately for relief. He couldn’t give in to their plea. But when black spots began to dot across his vision, Frank knew his body was on the verge of breaking down. His only option now was to try and find a place to hide.
Looking up ahead, he was surprised to see that the green turf was already coming to an end. It seemed only a second ago that he had begun his sprint, and now the end of the park was in sight. Separating the park from the road beyond it was a low, chain and stanchion barrier which Frank was by all means determined to jump. Just as he mustered a last ration of energy to hoist his hefty mass over the divider, a hand as strong as steel clamped down on his shoulder, its fingers digging into his collar bone. The sudden clutch threw Frank off guard. He tripped over the chain instead of hurdling above it. His face scraped across the pavement, but he couldn’t feel the pain of it yet. All he was aware of was that the fall had also thrown his captor off-balance and broken the steeled grip.
From somewhere deep inside, perhaps due to the newest course of this disaster, the familiar numbing and strengthening traits of adrenaline rushed through him, and Frank miraculously bounded to his feet and took off full tilt down the road calling for help. At that moment, the squeal of skidding tires infiltrated the air as a jet black coup dangerously rounded the street corner at high speed and bared down upon its target—him! Desperate to escape and having no time to think up an alternative action, in one swift move, Frank flew to the other side of the street, used his arms to vault over a four-foot-tall stone and mortar wall, and fell ten feet through the air into the cold, swift waters of the Thames.
Chapter 27
The sting from smacking his weighty frame against the surface of the river was slow in coming. However, the icy grasp of the water’s reciprocal embrace jolted Frank’s body to an immense extent. The dull pain of his oxygen-deprived muscles was instantly replaced with sharp needles that seemed to pierce through his skin and into his very core. But there was no time to dwell on such trifles. Swiftly popping up his head to draw in a breath, Frank saw several figures leaning over the wall in concern. Among them was a tall man of substantial bulk next to a thin man in large sunglasses. Frank didn’t try to examine their faces. Shaking off years of physiological rust to access the muscle memories of his school days as a competent swimmer, he strove to completely immerse himself under the dark-tinted water and swam with the current, keeping as close to the submerged retaining wall as possible. But in voluntarily giving all control to an entity far stronger than himself and unsympathetic to his immediate needs, Frank was quickly pulled by the current from the security of the weed-covered walls and thrust out into the rushing water highway.
Had he been a man of lighter mass, his demise may very well have been at hand as the unceasing heaves and insensitive surges of the current would have overcome him completely. But as it was, the river’s icy clutches could not win against the fortunate buoyancy his stocky frame provided, and Frank soon popped to the surface again with an automatic gasp for air. Wiping the water from his eyes and using his arms to motor him about, Frank was surprised to see how far he had been carried. The wall he had jumped from was still swarming with passersby, but the scene was now so distant he could only detect a mass of blurred color adorning the far-off stone barrier. No doubt, someone, if not several-ones, would have called the police by now and he could expect to be fished out presently - fished out of the river, but not out of danger. Besides the trouble he could be in with the law, considering the fact he would absolutely refuse to tell them the truth, it was also likely that the fiends who forced him over in the first place would be following, waiting to pounce again when the police were done with him. Would they grab hi
m on his way home from the station, or wait till he walked through his door? (For, surely, they knew by now where he lived.)
Despite his present cold-induced state of numbness, a visible shiver shook Frank’s torso as he examined the bleakness of his situation and the unlikelihood of an ultimate escape. Did the pair of thugs have their eye on him now? Had they been trolling along the river’s edge waiting for him to try and reach the embankment? A sharp chopping sound faintly reached his ears and interrupted his line of thought. A helicopter was coming near. Whether they were purposely looking for him or not, once he was spotted, their attention would draw everyone else’s attention toward him and his movements. He just couldn’t risk it.
Stretching out his arms which he could barely feel and paddling his legs, Frank settled into an awkward but sufficient swimming pattern similar to a front crawl stroke, though keeping his head above the waves at all times. He made for the opposite shore, hoping to remain a step ahead of his pursuers. The flow of the current continued to carry him down river, and Frank worked hard to try and cut across it. Recalling to mind stories of daring swimmers who had crossed the Thames in the last few years, he set his course at a softer angle instead of trying to fight at a hard 90º.
His plan was working well, for every couple of yards he was pulled down river, he managed to make his way another yard toward the bank. The chopper he’d heard had not appeared, and, from what he could see, the portion of waterway he was yet to surmount remained clear of oncoming boat traffic.
By gum! He thought to himself between breaths. He might just actually pull this off!
After ten minutes he was just within a few feet of his goal and began looking for something to grab to slow down. It would have been fortunate if he had been passing a wharf, where he could catch hold of a docked vessel’s rudder or rope. But no such provision for an easy emergence from the river’s hold was going to be made for him.
The Snare Page 9
