The Nursery

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The Nursery Page 2

by Asia Mackay


  This was our final morning before a full lockdown. Unit leaders were calling in all Rats abroad or undercover.

  Platform Eight was on high alert and we needed everyone in our network to be told.

  Throughout London buskers were singing their hearts out. Today certain carefully positioned performers were singing songs specially chosen by us. Songs that had a special meaning to our undercover operatives.

  In certain spots around town new graffiti would be appearing on key street corners. The homeless begging in specific alleyways would be holding signs in red.

  In the days where electronic correspondence was monitored and could no longer be trusted we relied on a wide network of more simple forms of communication.

  Everything usually ignored we used to our advantage.

  The public – or the Sheep, as we liked to call them – wouldn’t notice these tweaks. These little changes. But all our people would know the symbols, the signs, the lyrics.

  Run. Watch out. You’re compromised. This was what London was screaming to our operatives, to our informants.

  We had got to Agent Black in time. The others might not be so lucky. There was a Snake in our midst and no one was safe. Slithering around alongside us, using their inside knowledge to hurt us above ground. None of us would be safe until this traitor was found. Until they were eliminated.

  As I walked past an open office door I heard, ‘I’m worried. She hasn’t liked my latest photo on Instagram and I know she’s been on it this morning as she liked a photo of a dog walking in snow boots.’

  It may have sounded like typical office watercooler chit chat but this was important work. Tech Support were using social media to make sure Platform Eight operatives were getting the message all over the world. Key accounts posted photos of sunsets and planes in flight. Status updates like ‘Time for holibobs!’. Inspirational quotes along the vein of ‘Every ending is just a new beginning’. Every post was a call to get out, to get somewhere safe and hide out.

  It was a flurry of activity now but soon the corridors would be quiet.

  I’d been a Rat for twelve years and this was the first time we’d ever had a full lockdown.

  I walked into the meeting room. The rest of my unit were already assembled around the large, grand mahogany dining table, which had been installed there for as long as anyone could remember. It had become so much a part of the fabric of Platform Eight that it was underneath this table we carved the names of all the Rats we’d lost over the years. Within London there are many memorials marking the names of those who had given their lives to serving this country. But for us – those who didn’t officially exist – this was as good as it got. It was our way of honouring our fallen comrades. A small reminder that even if no one else knew, we did.

  Stationed in his usual seat at the corner of the dining table was Geraint ‘G-Force’ Callewaert, a small bespectacled IT expert, who was our Lead Tech Support. There was nothing he didn’t know about computers and he always seemed happiest plugged into his laptop, heavy metal on his headphones, tapping away at defeating yet another sophisticated security system.

  Opposite him was Robin Goh, a happy-go-lucky Chinese man with a strong Scottish accent, who was still paying his dues as a Rat-in-training. Recently he had been complaining about how it was time he branched out on his own. Got his own unit. Grew up and left the nest. It was down to Jake and me to decide if we thought he was ready.

  Jake had been my partner since I started as a Rat. Our history had been complicated: a veritable mess of sex and slaughter and blurred lines. A certain clarity was reached when I married Will – I took my marriage vows seriously. But there was always a question mark. And then a couple of years ago everything came to a head when Sandy White, our long-time unit leader, betrayed us all. He turned out to be a Snake, a traitor of the highest order, a turncoat, a disloyal fuckwit. On the take from the Russians and hired to tank our latest mission, Sandy had enrolled Nicola Adams, our Tech Support, to help him and together they tried to frame me and then kill me. Jake helped me stop them and it only took nearly dying for me to finally confront what was between us. The lines were now crystal clear. Partner. Colleague. Friend. Godfather to Gigi.

  Sandy and Nicola’s traitorous actions could have torn our unit apart. But there was no in-fighting or finger-pointing for our combined failing to spot the signs. Their betrayal brought the remaining four of us closer together. We had all been subjected to a series of intense interrogations and prolonged close monitoring. Not to mention the whispers from colleagues we had worked alongside for years looking at us and wondering if we too were dirty. Together we had had the gratification of being cleared of all wrongdoing and heralded as heroes for crushing a plot that would’ve given Russia an upper hand in cyberspace and beyond and taken decades to recover from.

  Both Jake and I had been offered the vacated role of unit leader. Both of us had turned it down.

  The broad six-foot-seven black man with the salt and pepper beard currently standing at the head of the dining table was the one who had said yes to the position. He was, as always, smartly attired in chinos and a shirt with a grandfatherly grey cardigan. The only nod to casual comfort were weathered size sixteen Nike trainers.

  Hattie Goodswen had started out as a Rat thirty years ago, before moving into the army to an undisclosed position. I couldn’t ever imagine he was the type of agent who would be able to simply melt unobtrusively into the background.

  I had asked him about it once and he had shrugged and said how I’d be surprised how easy it was: ‘I just wear a hoodie. Or look unwashed and bedraggled. People may spot me out the corner of their eye but they won’t dare look at me. It’s easy being invisible when no one wants to see you. All witnesses can ever remember is “big and black”, all the CCTV ever shows is “big and black”.’ He brushed his cheek. ‘This is a blessing.’ Hattie was very dark – dark enough that grainy CCTV could never get a clear impression of his face. ‘I was a Rat for ten years and seen walking away from the scene of a crime at least twenty times, but no one ever managed to put together an e-fit. Everyone gets so blinded by all this,’ he gestured over his large bulk, ‘that they never take the time to notice anything else.’ Hattie always spoke softly. I often wondered about him. This misunderstood big man.

  He was back at Platform Eight in his first desk job and he was proving to be an excellent Team Leader. He was a large, comforting presence. His voice had a deep, soothing tone – he never raised it. I trusted him, he was a good man and it was easy to get along with him. Although considering what I went through with Sandy, simply having a boss who didn’t want me dead made for a happier working environment.

  Pixie Nisbett was our other new arrival. A born and bred Londoner, she’d started with us last year as our unit’s Tech Support to back up Geraint. As an expert hacker with a background in code-breaking, she was an invaluable addition. She also added a splash of colour to an otherwise grey office environment. Tall with frizzy blonde hair, she was today wearing sequined jeans and a pink jumper, which had ‘Hot hot hot’ emblazoned across it in red letters. Her large earrings, which jangled every time she moved her head, were fluorescent pineapples.

  Pixie seemed incapable of talking to anyone without an endearment. I was pretty sure Hattie shuddered every time she called him ‘sweetcheeks’. She seemed to have no internal filter – everything she thought she said aloud. It was both refreshing and worrying – I had to presume outside the office she managed to keep any work-related thoughts to herself or Special Projects would’ve recommended her dismissal long ago.

  I took my seat at the table next to Jake. I noticed a splodge of porridge caked on the right thigh of my jeans. I scrubbed at it with a babywipe from my bag. Since having Gigi I’d never been more grateful for the Platform’s relaxed dress code. Once, when Gigi had a bad chest infection and I’d been up with her throughout the night, I turned up at the Platform half-asleep wearing tracksuit bottoms, a stained top and a mum bun. Jake had aske
d what the undercover homeless mission I was going out on was.

  I didn’t bother trying to explain to him there were many different definitions of mum chic.

  Hattie cleared his throat as he looked down at us all. If he stretched I was sure he could easily place both hands on the meeting room’s peeling ceiling. ‘We’re about to go on lockdown. There’s a Snake in our midst and agents and informants are dying thanks to this traitor. For the first time in Eight’s history the Committee have decreed that all active missions need to be shut down.’

  The Committee ran the country. A group of unknown individuals who made the decisions. The Prime Minister and Parliament were a front to give the appearance of democratic control. But they were all just puppets acting out the Committee’s orders.

  ‘What you don’t know is that we will be the only unit still in operation.’

  ‘Oh no, darlin’. Really? I just booked tickets to ComicCon.’ This was Pixie.

  Hattie pressed a couple of buttons on his laptop and what looked like a website homepage was projected onto the whiteboard. Against a black background was ‘The Tenebris Network’ written in large red font. Underneath was the tagline, ‘Discreet online recruitment services for all your personnel needs’.

  ‘This is our newest threat. Because of them we have seven dead and counting. Whistle have been tasked with locating and eliminating the Snake working for Tenebris before they undertake further damage.’

  Whistle was our unit name. Hattie had renamed us this upon his appointment as unit leader. He felt ‘clean as a whistle’ was a fitting nod to a unit that had been tarred by our previous unit leader’s traitorous actions. It was no surprise the Committee had chosen Whistle to find this latest Snake. After all they’d put us through the Committee could trust us to be clean. And we’d come up against a Snake before and won.

  Robin frowned as he read the whiteboard. ‘Online recruitment services? So Tenebris is a kind of LinkedIn? Although I don’t get how a networking website can get any of us killed?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. Reading through CVs of people showing off about their management skills would bore me to bloody death.’ Jake leaned back in his plastic chair and took a large gulp of coffee. He had dark circles under his eyes and was wearing the same shirt as yesterday. What Jake got up to on nights when he didn’t get home could vary from acrobatics with one of the many willing doe-eyed, long-limbed twenty-somethings that flocked to his dark, brooding looks, to dabbling in activities that could be violent, illegal, immoral or even all three. One time we’d been called in in the middle of the night for an urgent mission, I’d had to pick him up bloodied, bruised and missing a shirt from some disused railway tracks. Jake needed to push it, he needed to be on the edge. Even being a Rat wasn’t always enough. He’d go looking for the trouble he needed to get himself into and out of to feel alive. Today he looked exhausted, but there were no tell-tale specks of blood on shirt cuffs, no wincing as he leaned forward for another hit of caffeine. Maybe last night was just a particularly energetic young ingénue trying hard to convince him she was enough to give up the others.

  ‘Don’t be fooled by the bland recruitment talk. “Tenebris” is Latin for “dark” and this is without a doubt a dark force we’re dealing with,’ said Hattie. He nodded at Geraint. ‘Take us through it, G.’

  Geraint tapped a couple of buttons and a screenshot of a website homepage was projected onto the whiteboard. ‘The Tenebris Network is a major new threat to the security of not only all our assets and informants but all Security Service agents both here in the UK and abroad. It’s an app that’s a cross between Tinder and LinkedIn. On one side there are the profiles of Employees – for example, civil servants, agents, analysts, intelligence officers – while on the other are the Employers – foreign intelligence services, crime syndicates, drug kingpins and all manner of bad people. Tenebris confidentially connects Employers to Employees with a simple right swipe.’

  A PowerPoint presentation flicked through example pages of the Tenebris website and finished on their Terms of Business. We were all quiet as we took everything in.

  Geraint continued, ‘Let’s use our friend Black as an example. The international drug cartel he had infiltrated posted an ad on the Tenebris Network saying they wanted to know if there were any ongoing investigations into them. The Employees who replied to the ad would’ve included details on their position, security level clearance and their fee for finding out. The drug cartel would go through the Employee bids and swipe right on the one they wanted. Click. A match is made. The Employee supplies the info. The Employer gives them cash. All done through Tenebris and completely untraceable. I’ve spent some time on it and both the app and website appear to be impenetrable. They must have exceptional people on staff.’ Geraint bowed his head. Admitting defeat was new for him.

  ‘Black was working on a joint operation with Six. How do we know the Snake isn’t a Rat? We’re relying on the new protocols to presume we’re all clean?’ asked Jake. Since Sandy’s betrayal, additional security protocols had been actioned. They added extra man-hours to all our admin as everything needed cross-unit approval, but we figured it was worth it if it meant limiting the chances of another unit leader going on a traitorous rampage.

  ‘The drug cartel was matched with King666,’ said Hattie. ‘That username has, to date, bid on four different jobs – all to do with intel related to Six. All four of those operations ended in failure for Six with dead agents and dead informants. It’s why we’re convinced that the Snake is a Pigeon.’

  In Eight we called those from Five and Six ‘Pigeons’, as they were dotted all a round London and, in our opinion, would shit over everything. Whenever our paths crossed they seemed to add complications rather than solutions.

  Pixie frowned. ‘How did you get the information on King666 if the website is so unhackable?’

  ‘A few days ago Tenebris approached a Six agent asking if he wanted to sign up as an Employee. He accepted but brought it to his superior. Tenebris gave him a working login for their website. Six was then able to use it to hack into the hidden doors and download information. It was twenty-four hours until Tenebris discovered the breach and disabled the agent’s username. The information Six gained from the hack is how we were able to get to Black in time. It is, however, now back to being completely impenetrable. And Tenebris now know that we’re onto them.’

  I thought about everything Hattie was saying. ‘So it’s a headhunting service for traitors. A recruitment agency for the international criminal underworld.’

  Hattie nodded. ‘Tenebris is very much the facilitator in this whole operation. We’ve learned they act as guarantor and bank and take a forty per cent commission fee on every match. Once the deal is agreed they give the Employer and Employee a contact email address to set up a meet on and then bow out. It’s a very clever business plan. The Employee doesn’t dare rip off the Employer as they know Tenebris has all their personal information: name, home address, family members. If they don’t deliver, Tenebris passes it on to the Employer and they’re dead. Their family is dead.’ Hattie rubbed his beard as he spoke. ‘The Employer will always pay as before Tenebris take them on as a client, they are scrupulously vetted and have to hand over their bank details and statements to verify what level of funds they have access to. Tenebris will not put them in touch with the Employee until Tenebris have been paid the full amount. Tenebris then take their commission and pass the rest on to the Employee once the job is completed. Considering the type of information that is being sold on here and the vast database of Employers on there, Tenebris is without a doubt a multi-million-, if not billion-pound company.’

  Hattie gripped the back of the chair in front of him. ‘And they’re going to do whatever it takes to protect it. They know we’re looking for them. We need to get to them before they come for us.’

  ‘Eight are all on leave until the lockdown is over – that means no Surveillance? No R & D?’ asked Jake.

  ‘And no
one manning the canteen so no fry-ups?’ Robin looked more upset at that thought than the actual threat of Tenebris.

  Hattie’s mouth was set in a fine line. ‘Correct. We’re on our own on this. Until the Snake has been located and eliminated and the Tenebris Network is out of operation, the Committee are taking no risks.

  ‘I’ve been speaking to our international counterparts. Tenebris operates across the world. All intelligence agencies are affected. Everyone is concerned. With King666 we have the strongest lead and we have confirmed proof Tenebris is a British-owned outfit. America have been able to offer up some assistance. One of their East Coast operatives is in London at present.’

  America had its own branch of underground assassins.

  On the East Coast they worked out of Track 101 in Grand Central Terminal in New York. They were a much larger operation than us and as such utilising disused tracks and tunnels under the largest train station in the world was a fitting home for them. We had worked alongside them before and ‘Trackers’, as they called themselves, were frighteningly efficient. We were the small, independent shop compared to their large micro-managed corporation.

  ‘She will be here any minute.’

  She?

  Great.

  There was only one East Coast ‘she’ Tracker at present.

  She hated me.

  But then she hated everyone.

  Cameron Clarke had followed a similar career path to me. Recruited out of university and assigned straight into Track 101. The last time we had met it was crushing an international sex-trafficking ring. We had gone in undercover together and wreaked carnage on our would-be captors.

 

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