He held Kate as she came round, her blood pressure returning to normal as she lay in his arms. ‘Doug? Is Johnny okay?’
‘He’s unconscious. They’ve hurt him, but he’s alive. The US Marines are here and we’ll get them to fly him straight to hospital. Don’t worry. It’s over sweetheart.’
Special Agent Rutherford and his number two burst into the room, guns tracking the bodies, fixing on the couple who were hugging on the floor. ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Hunter?’ The gun barrel was steady, the bore a deadly tunnel aimed at Doug’s eyes.
He was baffled. He recognised the CIA man from Lee’s office and certainly was not expecting him to turn up. ‘I could ask you the same. The lad in the chair is this lady’s brother. The two stiffs kidnapped him. He needs a hospital fast.’ Two other agents appeared as Doug heard the chopper lift off and hover overhead. ‘There’s no one else here, Rutherford. I’ve checked.’
The agent nodded, said to his colleague, ‘Cover him. He’s our missing agent. Shoot him if he tries anything at all.’ He then used his own weapon to blast through Johnny’s chain to release him. Two agents carefully lifted the unconscious lad on to a stretcher and took him to the helicopter.
Doug watched as Kate held Johnny’s hand and walked with him, murmuring and sobbing, the sight of his ruined eye, his slack features, the blood, ripping her apart.
Rutherford handcuffed Doug and said, ‘Who’s the kid?’
Doug wanted to flee, knew he could disable Rutherford and escape while the other agents were diverted, caring for Johnny. But he needed to be with Kate for now. ‘His name’s Johnny O’Sullivan. Take good care of him. He’s a real whiz with computers. Looks like they kidnapped him for his skills.’
‘And his sister?’
‘A reporter from London, England.’
Rutherford holstered his gun and indicated the two bodies. ‘You kill them both?’
‘No, just the one. The boy with the boiled eyes and fried throat – the other guy did him. I’m sure they both deserved what they got.’
‘You may well be right, but what about Simm? You carve him up too?’
Doug felt empty and tired. His new life well and truly wrecked. ‘Yeah.’
Rutherford led him out to the waiting aircraft and briefed two of his agents to secure the scene.
Doug climbed in and sat opposite Kate, Rutherford and another agent either side of him. Johnny was on the floor between their feet.
‘You killed Simm, didn’t you? Just like that man back there. And Moo and the others? The orphanage Principal? Tortured and murdered.’ Kate’s hard eyes tore his heart wide open.
‘Kate...’ Doug’s tongue turned to ash. How could he even begin to explain? He croaked, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just who I am.’
***
‘Can you patch me through to Langley right away?’
‘Sure thing.’ The co-pilot took a few minutes setting things up. Rutherford waited, he wanted to talk to Teague via the USS Nimitz secure communications link. The aircraft lurched and weaved its way through the hills as the connection was made.
‘Sir, great news. We’ve got your hacker, though he’s in pretty bad shape. He’s only a kid. We’re taking him to the US Hospital in Bangkok. It’s closer than the ship.’
‘I told you I wanted him unharmed!’
‘He was being held under duress, sir. Looks like his kidnappers tried to kill him before we arrived.’
‘In that case you do whatever it takes to get him well enough to fly to Langley. Keep him under close guard, Rutherford. I’m holding you personally responsible for him until you get him back here.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And you keep me informed, you hear. That’s one Very Important Person you’ve got there. Did you pick up his computer?’
‘Yes sir, in fact we’ve got three machines, but one of them’s all burned up.’ Rutherford glanced at the pile of machinery in the corner of the cabin, one portable still smoking.
‘Get them to me as soon as you can. I’ll have Cody’s team take them apart. The kid – who is he? Any idea?’
‘Johnny O’Sullivan. Found him chained to a computer, puking blood. His sister’s with him, but she’s in shock. I’ll interrogate her later.’ Rutherford was feeling very pleased with himself as he reported to the operations boss. ‘And sir, we completed our other mission.’
‘You got him already?’
‘Yessir! He’s on his way home too. I’ll put him on the same flight as the computers tonight. He’s admitted killing Simm. ’Fraid he left two more bodies at the extraction site.’ Rutherford studied Doug as he spoke, the other man with his head back, eyes closed as if sleeping. ‘He’s been a busy bee in Thailand, sir.’
‘Okay Rutherford. Police involved?’
‘Not yet, sir.’ He had considered telling Lee then thought better of it. ‘Don’t see any reason to bother them with this, sir.’
‘Sounds good to me. Arrange to have the site sterilised. Oh, and well done, Rutherford. Tell the team from me – excellent work.’
***
‘Jack, you can tell the President we’ve cracked a high level paedophile ring... Some of these names are famous. There’s a couple of US celebrities, an English Lord and a Knight on this list too, for chrissakes. You betcha they thought they were above the law.’ Teague handed a fat file to his boss.
‘Thanks Mike. I’ll tell the Chief Executive we delayed announcing anything on Simm until we had wrapped up the whole caboodle. That should get him off our backs for a while.’ The two colleagues were eating breakfast in the Director’s office a few hours after Rutherford’s call.
‘We sure got a stack of evidence to follow up. Simm’s kiddie porn site in Russia sold images worldwide. Cody’s team received a load of information downloaded by our hacker, including access to the site’s administration system. My boys have been in, scooped up Simm’s customer database then shut the site down. Deleted everything. Cody’s sent all we’ve got to the FBI, including customer names, purchase records, the lot. The Feds are calling it Operation Iceberg.’
‘You passed the missing Candyman files to the FBI already?’
‘Sure. The degenerates are being picked up as we speak. The feds are on to the eleven men in that file who are based in the US. All of them are jetsetters who regularly fly to the UK on business. The rest of them live there and are being followed up by the Brits. Oh, and we’ve spoken to the attorney acting for Mrs Simm and SimmpleTravel.’
‘Not sure they really had a case, Mike. That attorney was reaching with the threat to sue us.’
‘It certainly ain’t gonna happen anyway, thanks to the O’Sullivan boy. Mind you, Simm’s two kids wouldn’t support legal action in any case. Makes you wonder huh? And one of the Directors of the firm, a Sir Benjamin Courtney, well, he’s got a file.’
‘Yeah? SimmpleTravel really was a front for the paedophile operation?’
‘No. But it seems this Courtney was Simm’s partner in the porno business. SimmpleTravel may have had nothing to do with any of Simm’s illicit activities, but I’ll tell ya, that company’s bust. And so is Courtney. The British Flying Squad picked him up a few hours ago.’
The Director chewed on a bagel and slurped coffee as he read through the file. ‘Why do you think Simm kept all these files? Why not destroy the evidence when he made them disappear from the FBI database all those years back?’
‘Two reasons, I reckon. Blackmail primarily, in case he ever needed leverage. Some powerful people there, Jack.’
‘Yeah, I can understand that, but why would he keep his own?’
‘That’s the second reason. Cody reckons it was ego. All these computer wizards like to gloat over how clever they are. Cody thinks Simm couldn’t bring himself to erase it. He was so arrogant he believed no one would ever find it. He was almost right.’
‘And the kid? He on his way yet?’
‘No, unfortunately he’s in a critical state. He was tortured. They fried the poor fella�
�s gonads and ruptured his bowels. He lost pints of blood, mostly inside his abdomen. He may not pull through.’
‘Let’s hope he does. He may’ve shown us his ass but I want to shake him by the hand. If it weren’t for him, these scumbags would still be out there. He deserves a medal.’ The Director paused, thinking. ‘Maybe we could arrange it.’
‘Yeah? Well, the Skunkworks can’t wait to organise a welcome party.’
‘Hunter?’
‘On his way here, Jack. To tell the truth, I don’t know what the hell to do with him. In fact, I never did.’
***
George Simm’s body was flown into Boston that night, the plain wooden casket whisked away without a welcoming fanfare.
Gloria Simm had been committed to an institution for the mentally ill so it fell to her children to make the arrangements for her husband.
George Simm Junior and his sister instructed the funeral parlour to cremate the body and sprinkle the ashes without ceremony.
They did not attend their father’s send off.
They did not even want to know where the ashes were thrown.
***
Kylie held down the button and the tinted glass sank into the limousine door. She looked out at the rundown house. A rusty car was dumped in the scraggy front garden, the windows smashed and the wheels jacked up, tyres missing.
She could hear the Bitch screaming, probably at another ‘uncle,’ the screeched obscenities drifting into the car through the open window. It had been her plan to confront the Bitch, to gloat, dressed in her new fur coat, arriving in the big stretch limo.
She pressed the button again. The glass shut off her mother’s voice.
‘Heathrow please, Phil.’
The chauffeur turned and asked, ‘You sure, Kylie?’
‘Yeah. Fuck it! Dunno why I bothered coming to this shithole in the first place. I’ve won the fuckin lottery y’know! Heathrow, Phil. I’m off to Spain!’
They both laughed as the limousine pulled away from the Hackney council house.
***
Charles Tandy put his arm around Kate’s shoulders as she sobbed into his chest. Her tears were soaking his shirt, leaving a trace of black mascara there.
‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart.’ The words were wrenched from deep within him. He stumbled on, ‘Maybe if I hadn’t told Gus, if he hadn’t told Knight, then Knight wouldn’t have told Courtney...’ He hugged her to him as he said, ‘Who knows? Things could’ve worked out different.’
‘It’s my fault! All my fault!’ Kate’s words were muffled, her mouth pressed against Tandy’s ribcage as he stroked her hair, the cool London breeze floating blonde strands into his face.
‘Miss O’Sullivan? My name’s Cody.’
Kate pulled away from Tandy, tried to gather herself. She inspected the young man with an American drawl, clean cut in his dark suit. ‘I don’t know you. Are you a cyberfriend of Johnny’s?’ She snuffled, took a tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
‘I think I would’ve been. We were very similar. I work for the CIA. Government Systems Security, you know? Johnny worked for us about five years ago – for a few weeks.’
‘The Skunkworks Kindergarten?’ Kate’s bloodshot eyes measured Cody. ‘You sure don’t look like a hacker.’
‘No ma’am, not today. A few of the team are here to pay our respects.’ He indicated the group of four of his colleagues, not at all clean-cut, but respectfully dressed in black. Cody opened a bag. ‘If you don’t mind, we’d like to put some things with Johnny. We didn’t know him personally but he sure knew us.’
Kate peered into the bag. Fat tears dripped on to the burnt-out laptop – the T12.
Cody went on, ‘It may not seem much, but your brother – he was the best, the greatest. He achieved the impossible before he died... He’s also responsible for wrapping up Simm’s paedophile network. We reckon thousands of perverts will end up behind bars, where they can’t hurt any more kids, thanks to Johnny.’
Kate nodded, unable to speak.
Cody gestured to his colleagues and they filed past the grave, each dropping a compact disc or usb stick on to the coffin. Finally, Cody lowered the T12 into the ground and said a few words before returning to Kate.
‘The Director wanted you to have this.’ Cody opened a small felt box.
Tandy leaned forward to see as he held Kate’s arm. She was speechless, so he spoke for her. ‘The Presidential Medal of Freedom?’
‘Yes. It’s the highest decoration possible for a civilian. Awarded posthumously to Johnny for services rendered to the United States of America.’
Kate laughed, a strangled noise, but smiled as she took it. ‘Ironic isn’t it? Johnny gets a medal from the CIA for hacking their systems and putting files into their database. And I was always worried about them finding us and Johnny going to prison.’
‘He was a real hero in the end. I wish I’d met him. You should be real proud Miss.’ Cody dipped his head and left with his entourage.
Kate turned to Tandy as he asked, ‘What will you do now, kiddo?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think I’m cut out for tabloid journalism, do you? I’m a bit like Johnny – too naive.’ Her voice cracked as she asked, ‘Why is it always the innocents that have to die Charles?’
‘No idea darlin.’ Tandy shrugged as they made their way to his car. ‘But life goes on, Kate.’
‘I suppose so. It just feels so wrong without Johnny.’ Kate sniffed and blew her nose again, her eyes shiny and wet.
Tandy was right, she thought.
Life does go on.
She had tested positive that morning.
A new life was beating inside her belly, created during her one precious night of bliss during the horrors of her few days in Thailand.
###
Author’s Comments
Thank you!
Thank you for taking the time to read this, my first novel. Having got this far I hope you enjoyed reading it – I certainly enjoyed writing it! I really do appreciate that readers have a huge range of choice these days and I am very grateful you spent some time with me, Kate and Doug. I also hope you will enjoy reading more of my novels in future.
Please help!
If you enjoyed this novel I would really appreciate you posting a review on your favourite online bookstore or readers’ site – such as Goodreads. If you have any comments or questions please contact me: I really enjoy getting feedback from readers and have incorporated some of their suggestions in this edition of The Hack. I am currently working on a follow up to this novel which should be ready for launch in late 2017 – please see The Hunter below – and reader feedback is already helping me create a powerful sequel!
Free stuff!
I regularly give away copies of my own and other authors’ ebooks so please let me know via my website if you would like to be notified of such offers through my occasional Readers Group newsletter. You can also obtain a complimentary copy of the ebook edition of Remorseless if you register as a Readers Group Member - all I need is your email address and first name. There are also pages on the websites only accessible to Readers Group members, with deleted scenes, backstory, author commentary etc, so let me know if you would like to join!
Why write this novel?
Several years ago I came across a few articles about Operation Candyman and the most striking aspect was the scope of the investigation. Not just the sheer scale, with thousands of people under investigation, but that the alleged paedophiles represented all walks of life – judges and policemen included.
The original version of this story was written several years before the UK scandal of high profile paedophiles such as Jimmy Savile came to light: the novel was first published in 2006. Since then operation Yewtree has exposed more high profile names and as I write this there are still many plausible accusations regarding VIP paedophiles highly placed within the British Establishment. Indeed, some young lads went missing after being allegedly abused and disposed of, w
ith some online accounts claiming the involvement of a former Prime Minister with the connivance of the security services...
Is this true? Who knows? And if it is, will we ever find out?
So, Savile and his co-perverts did not inspire this novel. The story came to me after I watched a TV documentary in which an investigative reporter surreptitiously followed a number of apparently respectable tourists in Thailand and filmed them enticing young street urchins to their rooms for sex. Inspiration for the story crystallised in my mind as I saw a fat American walking hand in hand with his young ‘purchase’ along a tropical beach...
This novel is the result.
The exploitation of minors is a difficult subject to write about and not a popular one with readers. The original novel was turned down by many western agents before being picked up by my Bangkok publisher, but I believe it is an important and relevant topic, albeit uncomfortable. Hence, I rewrote the story, taking full account of reader feedback and professional editors’ advice.
Most people are unaware that a vast trade in human beings still flourishes years after abolition – yet sex slaves can be found in most countries, even the ‘enlightened’ west. The victims are invariably young and vulnerable, and the ruthless men (and it is mostly males) who exploit these people treat them as if they were of no more value than pieces of livestock. They accrue and hoard vast wealth and use it to influence the authorities and to mask their activities.
In the UK and the US thousands of children join the list of long term missing each year, and there is little doubt they are exploited by such corrupt individuals. This is an ongoing problem, and I hope that this novel is thought provoking as well as entertaining.
Operation Candyman
Although this is work of fiction, the FBI operation and its UK equivalent, Operation Ore, resulted in many real life convictions. However, in the US, a large proportion of the accused were exonerated as many credit card records were not exclusively related to the purchase of child pornography, and there were irregularities in evidence gathering etc. This led to a dearth of convictions but in the UK the prosecutors were more successful. That may well change as many are now appealing their convictions in an attempt to clear their names.
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