During the Arab spring, the father believed that he could help Egypt to change and went back to try and work with the democratically elected government only to find that it was an Islamic extremist group who had him arrested and executed as an ‘Apostate’.
Farid was studying at computer science at Oxford at the time, he was recruited and given the chance to work with MI6 against the Islamic extremists, he works in the cyber division tracking the links between extreme Islam and organised crime, particularly the drug world.
“Is this for real?” Jimmy’s face was ashen, “I mean this guy”
“Was a spook?” Billie asked, “I believe so, this is what those swine were after, they wanted to stop this getting to us!”
“But why?” Jo was confused, “Who were they?”
“That’s what I’d like to sodding well know!” Billie said ruefully, “Then I’d know who to slap the flamin’ cuffs on after I’ve got my revenge that is!” she took a sip of the beer. Jimmy had ordered a plate of sausage rolls as well, they arrived just then, she reached out and took one, the flaky pastry was delicious, she stopped for a moment savouring the pastry before carrying on, “but here’s what we have, an employee of MI6 is murdered on our turf, and someone’s hiding stuff from the cops, you can guarantee that ‘someone’ was MI6, but then someone else wants us to find out what the hell is going on! That’s the strange bit, you can bet your bottom dollar it wasn’t the killers or MI6!”
“Let me get this straight” Jimmy looked totally confused, he reached for his pint, took a swig of the beer and put the schooner back down on the table, he was careful not to spill any of the precious amber liquid, “We’ve got a body in the river”
“Had a body” Joanne interrupted, “it was cremated yesterday, on someone’s orders, the ashes are being put in a pauper’s urn”
“What?” both Billie and Jimmy were stunned, “No one contacted the family?” Bille got the next part of the question out, but both were thinking it, “Why? And How?”
“It’s what you sign on for with MI6” Joanne replied, “kind of makes sense they could, they tell you that you might be killed in service, and there’s no way they could recover the body, so you sign all rights like that away, hell, you don’t even get any memorial, at least the CIA has a star on the wall at Langley, MI6 doesn’t even get that!” she drained the last of her drink, Billie offered to buy another round of drinks, it was obvious they were going to need them. She gave the money to Jimmy to ‘do the honours’
As soon as Jimmy was back Joanne continued, “it’s what they agree to at the start,” she shifted a little, “The pathologist was pretty much overridden and told to find a ‘death by misadventure’ in the report, though even he said it was bloody strange”
“I thought it was strange” Bille cut her off, “I’ve been trying to get hold of their office for a few days, well I was before the attack, no one answered, there was some weird stuff in that report,”
“You mean like being pumped up on adrenaline?” Joanne asked, “I got hold of him, before he went on ‘holiday’” she made the inverted comma sign, “by the way, he did say to say hi, and don’t try to call” she almost giggled, the beer was having an effect, not that it was anything serious, she was finished work for the day, “he told me to tell you, and make sure it was no one else,” she stopped for a moment, then went on, “oh well, I suppose if you trust Jimmy, then I can”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence” Jimmy wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or an insult, but he took it anyway, he was still very much the junior member of the team.
“He said there was a hypodermic needle mark in the back, right where the shoulder blades meet the backbone, left-hand side, it went straight into the heart, Adrenaline injected there would cause a sudden and massive heart attack, he said it could look like someone ‘drunk as a skunk’ staggering along, they wouldn’t feel the needle, but the effects would be deadly within minutes”
“So” BJ looked at the two, “what did Townsend say to that? I presume you told him”
“Didn’t want to know” Joanne replied, “I tried to say something, but he just wasn’t interested, told me to drop it like a hot potato.”
“Someone yanking his chain you think?” Billie asked, she already knew what she thought, she just wanted to see if what she was thinking stood up to scrutiny.
“I’d say much further up the food chain than him” Jimmy was the one to reply.
“CTC” Joanne replied, “we had a visit from them just before they shut us down”
“Put the fear of God into everyone right?” Billie asked, she didn’t wait for a reply, “Those bastards shut us down, probably saying they’re gonna deal with it, yeah right” she was angry, she’d dealt with them before.
‘CTC’ are the initials for what is known as ‘Counter Terrorism Command’ or what was the old Special Branch and the Metropolitan Police’s own Anti Terror unit called SO13 (Special Operations section 13) they were rolled together to do everything ‘in house’ including investigating and taking down the ‘bad guys’ with the power of arrest (something that MI5 doesn’t have, but ‘5’ calls on the SAS when they need things done, something that causes huge rivalry between the two.
“We know this guy was MI6” Billie began again, “Killed by someone, CTC doesn’t want it investigated, neither do some parts of MI6, he worked in computers, linking it all back to terrorism, what are they hiding?”
“You said some parts of MI6 boss” Jimmy cut in, “care to explain?”
“Take a look at the file itself” she replied taking a swig of the beer, replacing the glass she leaned back in the seat, the pub was still only half full, and no one seemed to be paying too much attention, she went on, “it’s an internal file, a personnel file, someone on the inside got that file and sent it to us, that’s why I say some parts, someone else wants the truth to come out, then there’s my guardian Angel from the other night, how the hell did he know I was going to need help?”
“Let me have a look at that file again” Joanne leaned in closer, she took the laptop and studied the contents of the file, her face began to change, “Oh Jesus” she let out a quiet shriek, “I think I know what it’s about, she reached for her phone, flicked through to Google and started tapping away at the screen.
“What?” both of the other two asked at the same time. They stopped with their glasses in mid-air, “what is it?”
“Take a look” Joanne swung the phone around, “we found the body nine days ago right, he worked in computers, the cyber division, then seven days ago the ransomware hit” she showed the screen, it had the first news reports of the damage the ransomware did listed, “If I’m right, he would have been our last line of defence, taking down the ransomware.” she was getting excited. She began tapping the screen of the laptop.
“Except that it was stopped” Billie replied. Not sure where things were going.
“By pure fluke” Joanne replied, “some geeky hacker still living at home with Mum and Dad just happened to find the kill switch, what if he wasn’t meant to find it, but someone else was, and they were meant to do something else with it!”
“But what? And why?” Jimmy asked.
“I don’t know, but here’s where things get really strange” Joanne replied, “Five days ago, MI6 sent a team to pick this guy up, take him into protective custody”
“And?”
“They were ambushed, they tried to shoot the team down in the streets, the MI6 team have gone to ground and no one knows where the hell they are! Not only that, but they’ve got the hacker with them, and he might be injured!”
Chapter 30
Stunned would be putting things mildly, both of them stopped mid-air with the drinks on the way to their mouths, “What the F?” Bille almost slammed hers down on the table, “when did this happen, and how come we haven’t heard about it? And flaming well where?”
Joanne stopped, she suddenly realised she’d probably said too much, “My flatmate,”
she said quickly, almost too quickly, “she works in the call centre” she went on, “she was on shift when the 999 call came in, took the details, and got things moving, then she got a ‘visitor’ said he was from the home office, wanted all the recordings and stuff, kinda strange really” she reached for her drink, “it was in the West Country, just outside Bristol, I can find out for you”
“Do that!” Billie replied, almost shouting, a few heads turned their way, she quickly quietened down, “then let’s see what this is about, any chance you can ask her now?”
“That would be suspicious” Joanne replied, “though we can search the Police database and see if anything pops up like that, I know they got the files for the calls, but surely they can’t delete everything straight away, there was an armed response unit sent, you can’t make that disappear off the files overnight, can you?”
“Even if the police files vanish” BJ began.
“There’s got to be press coverage, and that’s a different story” It was Jimmy replied, he flicked to Google on his phone, a few strokes of the keys later he had what he was looking for, “Here we are” he turned his phone so the other two could see it, it was a news article, ‘Police respond to armed incident just outside Bristol’ with the name of a reporter on it, the details were sketchy, but enough to give them some idea which station would have been dealing with the incident.
“What’s the betting they’re getting shut down as fast as we are?” Jimmy asked as they got up to leave the pub, “bloody good odds they’ve already been shut down”
“Nah” BJ replied, “this was gunplay on the streets, most likely the best way to deal with this is to shift the blame, fit someone up for it, preferably one of your more unsavoury criminals, one you know has done some pretty serious shit, but you can’t prove it, so you get ‘em to plead guilty to this and tell ‘em you’ll ask for a lighter sentence, makes everyone feel good, feel safer, but the real dickheads get away with murder”
“Not in this case boss” Jimmy quipped, “just attempted”
“You know what I mean” she shot back, “Let’s give this guy a visit, Jo, you head back to the office, see what else you can dig up, Jimmy and I’ll get down there and pay a visit to the cop lumbered with this”
“You sure these are even linked Guv” Jimmy asked as the climbed into the car, he’d had two pints of Lager, he was right on the legal limit for driving, but he’d also had food with the drinks would absorb some of the alcohol, it wasn’t the best idea they had, and both would love to leave it for another day, but there just wasn’t time, things were slipping away, and fast.
Bristol is directly west of London, the easiest way to get there is to pick up the M4 motorway in London and simply drive west, for about eighty miles, then just as you come to the junction of the M4 and M32 take the M32 straight into the heart of the city, they headed that way.
“Hi there” Billie started the conversation over the phone, “this is DS Jones, I’m wanting to talk to Sergeant Harris of your ARU, is he in?”
“Hang on sergeant the voice came back, I’ll just try his line” the phone went to music, she was on hold, about fifteen seconds later she heard someone pick up, “Sergeant Harris, how can I help?” a male voice came on the line.
“This is DS Jones from the Metropolitan Police” she began, “I’m calling about a case you’re investigating at the moment, the shooting in Little Stoke” she stopped, waiting for a reaction.
“Yes,” he replied, “what about it?”
“We’ve got something that might tie in with it up in London, can we get together and have a talk?”
“We already handed the case over” he began, “Special Branch, or whatever they call themselves today, some kind of international link yadda, yadda, ya” she knew he didn’t believe a word of what he’d been told, but had gone along with it, because that’s what you do if you value your career and pension, not to mention wanting to stay out of jail.
“Oh, sorry to hear that,” she clipped the phone off, ‘shit’ was all she could think, ‘all this effing way, and for what, diddly squat!” she was about to tell Jimmy to find a place to get off the motorway and head back, wasted journey and all when her phone started ringing, she glanced at the number, didn’t recognise it, but it couldn’t be a coincidence could it? I mean she’d only just got off the phone with the guy, swiping the screen she spoke, “Yeah”
“Listen up” she recognised the voice, one she’d just been talking to, but calling from another phone, one that wasn’t being monitored, “I’ll be at the Blackbeard on the wharf in fifteen minutes, we can talk then. I’ll be at the bar, on the far right.” the phone clicked off.
“How far’s the wharf?” she asked Jimmy.
“No idea boss, look it up on Google”
Before she could the car’s Bluetooth had already connected and begun the search, ‘twenty minutes’ was already displaying on the screen with the directions on how to get there, “The Blackbeard pub?” she added to the query, the computer went blank for a couple of seconds, then came back with the information they needed.
Bristol’s most famous son isn’t known by his real name, but by a name the put fear into the heart of every man who took to the seas in years gone by, one that still lives on in legend and movies, and was the inspiration for one of Johnny Depp’s best known characters, Blackbeard.
Second only to their exploits on the seas, pirates were also famous for their drinking and the general trouble they caused on land, so it was only fitting that Bristol, once the second most important port in Britain would celebrate her most famous son by naming a pub after him, and that it should be down on the wharf, where he probably first went to sea.
The pub was a typical ‘Olde Worlde’ kind of place, it looked old, but the kind of old that’s well maintained, fresh whitewash on the stone walls, fairly new black paint enhancing the Oak beams that formed the frame of the Tudor style building, the low door was a dead giveaway that the pub actually was old, and probably dated from Blackbeard’s time, not that they were there for the sights.
Gone are the days when walking into a bar your senses are immediately assaulted by the cigarette smoke, and battling the haze was the first challenge, instead the pub looked clean and fresh, Bille could actually see around the room, not that it was large, just four or five tables, two of which had people at them, three more patrons were propping the bar up, two young staff were behind it, making sure that drinks were kept full, and anyone wanting to order something to eat could do so with a minimum fuss.
There was a board with a menu up behind the bar, the fish and chips was ‘fresh cod’ if you count two weeks in the freezer on the trawler as being ‘fresh’ but beggars can’t be choosers as the saying goes, she indicated to Jimmy to order them some ‘grub’ and a couple of drinks while she headed to the table Harris had said he would be at.
“Sergeant Harris?” she asked the guy sat at the table, he was tall and thin, but with an athletic frame, short black hair gave the game away that he was ex-military. He indicated her to take the seat opposite, there were two more seats at the table, he flicked one of them round so that it was pointing towards the next table.
“You must be DS Jones” he didn’t wait for her to reply, “What can I do for you?” he was polite but direct, she liked that.
“As I said on the phone earlier” Billie replied, “I’m interested in the events of the other day!” she tried not to mention the actual incident, it wouldn’t do to give too much away,
“Not a lot I can tell really” Harris replied truthfully, “Whole street got bloody well shot up, but when we got there no one to be seen, just a bunch of cars with bullet holes all through them, broken glass all over the place, but that’s what you get when someone’s spraying and praying if you know what I mean”
“Haven’t heard that term for a while” Billie was surprised, she’d only ever heard ex-squaddies use that term, and it wasn’t complimentary to the shooter! “Where’d you serve?”
> “What?” he was a bit surprised, “Iraq, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Afghanistan in ‘04, why?”
“Only people I heard use that term were men and women who knew what they were talking about with weapons that’s why?” Billie replied truthfully, “anyway roughly how many shots were fired?”
Jimmy was back with drinks, he had a Carlsberg for Billie, but he was on Coke, he took the other chair, they waited for him to sit before continuing.
“We counted fifty holes in the vehicles” Harris replied, “all 9 millimetre, in other words, it was a submachine gun, or possibly two”
“What makes you say that?”
“Where the shell casings were found” he answered.
“Really! What was so special?”
“There were two shooters, or at least two people using weapons, possibly one of them was the guys taking the kid into protective custody, but they’re missing, so no one could confirm that!” he shrugged.
“I’m guessing it’s where the shell casings were found gave that away?” Jimmy was actually asking a question but trying to sound observant.
“No” the reply came back, “we only found two casings, and that’s why I’m saying two shooters”
“Why?”
“If you’re firing from a moving vehicle” Harris started to explain, “chances are you’ll have the only the end of the barrel outside the vehicle, you’ll probably have a casing catcher fitted, otherwise you stand the chance of hot casings hitting the driver causing them to swerve and crash”
Both Jimmy and Billie looked a little confused, Harris tried to explain a little more, “Look, we drive on the left-hand side of the road right?” they both nodded, “that means our steering wheel is on the right, and the shooter, unless he’s in the back is on the left, almost all weapons are designed for right-handed people, that means the cases eject flying to the right, straight at the driver, so the best way to stop that is a sock or something over the ejector to stop the casing flying off and hitting the driver, pretty much all military people use them as brass isn’t cheap!”
Scorpion's Vengeance Page 14