Livia knew, however, that the front gate was something of a charade. The wall followed the road to the left and right of the gate for some distance, but once the edge of the property curved away from the road, the defenses changed to barbed wire and, near the house, a split rail fence amidst a patch of woods. Behind the house was a farm track that wended its way across the property and then through the fields of several other farms until ultimately fetching up on the main road again two miles from the house. The staff accessed the house along that lane, parking their cars a hundred yards from the back door in a graveled car park, because there wasn’t enough room for their vehicles at the front of the house. That’s also where a large farm shop and barn were located.
Livia could only assume—hope—Chad had security back there too. Tonight, Joe pulled the van in front of a six-bay garage, several of the doors of which were open, revealing more Treadman Global vehicles, all black, including the SUV in which they’d driven to Llanberis.
Michael slid out of the van after Livia, and they walked into the house together. While the security system was new, the house itself was old. David had called it a farmhouse, but the compound Chad had leased in North Wales was really a sixteenth century manor, remodeled innumerable times over the centuries, and now included an open floor plan that was possibly not far off from the large hall of the sixteenth century, though modern owners had modified the lathe and plaster exteriors to include large windows. Slate had been used in both the floors and the roof.
Once inside, Michael, Candy, and Livia made their way to the lounge, where they found Chad ensconced in the depths of a plush armchair. Here, the open floor plan was most evident, with the lounge forming one leg of an ‘L’ with the other leg being the breakfast room.
On the other side of the entryway lay the dining room, with a large formal table that seated eight people on a side. The table in the breakfast room was large too, but was intentionally rustic, as might be found in a farmhouse, with a rough-hewn, distressed look and a combination of benches and straight back chairs around it on which to sit. The kitchen was attached to the breakfast room, accessible through a wide swinging door, which at the moment was closed.
Chad had a drink in his hand, and he gestured with it. “Oh good. You’re back. Have a seat.”
Michael remained standing. “We need to talk.”
Nodding vigorously, Candy came around behind Michael. “Now.”
Chad had been looking more relaxed than Livia had ever seen him, possibly because the drink in his hand wasn’t his first one. “By the look on your faces, the news isn’t good.”
“Maybe you don’t want to do this in front of everyone,” Candy said.
Livia was happy to let Candy and Michael take point. After all, Chad was their boss. With David gone and Five apparently shunning her, she was just along for the ride anyway. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Bard hadn’t suggested she come with him to where her men had been incapacitated, and even though she’d been checking her phone every thirty seconds for the last three hours, it remained resolutely silent.
Chad tipped his head towards the rest of the people in the room, indicating they should leave. It was really only Reg, Joe, and Amelia. The latter frowned, but, as usual, she had a mobile phone to her ear, and she left by the same doorway Livia and the others had come in. A moment later, Livia could see Amelia pacing back and forth in the foyer.
Livia brought her attention back to Chad. “Where are Cade and Sophie?”
“Asleep, hopefully. Reg carried Cade upstairs. He never woke up.” He tipped his chin to point to Michael. “I put him in the room where you slept last night. I’m hoping you’ll share it with him so when he wakes, he will recognize the first person he looks at.”
“Of course,” Michael said, showing no sign of being disconcerted at sharing his room with Anna’s son.
Chad gestured again with his glass. “You can at least sit down.”
Livia and Candy did as he bid, but Michael first went to the large picture window—eight feet wide by six feet high—behind Chad and pulled the curtains across. The room suddenly became more confined but also homier, and the four of them settled into the furniture, Livia next to Michael on a sofa and Candy in a chair adjacent to Chad’s. Livia leaned forward so she could see the screen of Candy’s laptop, which Candy spun around on the coffee table for Chad to look at. Michael stayed where he was.
For a moment, nobody said anything, and then Chad said, “Do you have the video of before and after these images were taken?”
“Yes.” Candy spun the laptop back and went to work on her computer with feverish tapping and clicking.
“Did you really sift through all the feeds from all the cameras at the warehouse in the last two hours to find those two images particularly?” Chad asked.
“Well, that was kind of a weird thing,” Candy said as she continued to work. “I found the image taken outside in the parking lot first, but that was only because the particular camera that took it had been flagged in the menu. Out of curiosity, I clicked on it.”
“Who flagged it?” Chad said.
“I ... don’t know.” Between one second and the next, Candy started to lose confidence.
“What’s the firewall for the system like?” Livia asked.
Candy let out a grunt. “It’s closer to a low hedge than a wall. But isn’t the image real?”
Chad held out his hands, and Candy gave him the laptop. He started typing and clicking too.
Livia reminded herself that Chad himself had started out as a tech genius, building software in his parents’ basement in between working part time as a barista, since he couldn’t get a job after university. Thirteen years ago, with the entire planet in the throes of a great recession, few employers would look twice at a twenty-two-year-old kid, no matter how smart he was.
Chad spoke in the midst of his typing. “The image is real. I don’t deny that. But if you go back a ways, you’ll see me talking on my phone, which of course I do all the time, and then that man approaches me with a MI-5 badge. He told me he was on Livia’s team.”
Livia shook her head. “I don’t know him.”
Chad gave a little tsk. “I understand that now, but I didn’t know it at the time, and I had no reason to think he wasn’t legit. I did look at the badge,” he added with his first sign of defensiveness. Up until now, he’d been completely calm. It could have been the drink talking, but even so, Livia was starting to think he really might not have done anything wrong.
Michael wasn’t yet convinced. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Chad spun the laptop around to show Michael and Livia a video feed on a two minute loop. Chad was in the center of the screen, talking on his mobile, and then, towards the end, a man in a dark suit approached, as Chad had said. He showed his badge, which Chad studied, and then after Chad said some words to him, the man walked into the warehouse. He was followed by a second man wearing sunglasses (despite the fact that the sun had gone down), at whom Chad merely bobbed his head in acknowledgment.
Livia’s hand went to her mouth. “It was you. You let them in!”
“So it seems. And why wouldn’t I? They were MI-5. I even told them where to find you.”
Michael turned to look at her. “That could have been a real badge, taken from one of your guys after they rendered him unconscious.”
Livia took in a breath. “Okay. What about the way you looked up at the lights right before the shooting started?”
“I did that because of Owain’s guy,” Chad said.
“Owain’s guy?” Michael asked.
Chad spread his hands wide. “I don’t know who he was. I didn’t bother to check. He was just one of the fifty techs running around the warehouse before the interview. He told me that at the end of the interview they were going to do a God Save the King type thing with streamers and confetti. Maybe balloons. Maybe a 21-gun salute, which was why initially I didn’t react to the gunfire. It was all going to come
down from the catwalk.”
“I didn’t see any preparations for something like that on the catwalk when we were up there,” Livia said. “Then again, I didn’t look closely at all the boxes once Michael showed me the rifle.”
“Did David know about the confetti?” Michael asked Chad.
“No. Owain’s guy asked that I not tell him. They wanted it to be a surprise, and I saw the benefit of having his reaction be natural. The whole thing seemed not only harmless, but a good thing. It meant whatever harsh questions Owain had in store for David would be mitigated by the fact that they were going to treat him as they should, at least by the end.”
“Did you tell anyone what was going to happen?” Livia asked.
“No.” Chad shrugged helplessly. But then he sat upright. “No, wait! I told Amelia!”
Livia rose to her feet and went to the door. Amelia had retreated to the dining room and was still talking on her mobile. The press never slept, apparently. After Livia crooked her finger at her, Amelia said her goodbyes into the phone and disconnected. “Can I help you?”
“Chad needs you to come through,” Livia said.
Once back in the lounge, Chad started speaking before Amelia was two steps through the door. “Do you remember what I told you right before the interview? About the balloons?”
“Yes. I thought it wasn’t a bad idea, actually. It was appropriate pomp for a king.” She frowned. “Why? Obviously it didn’t happen.”
Chad gestured to Amelia. “See. I wasn’t the only one who thought it would be a fun surprise.” He ran his hand through his hair and then went back to the laptop.
Amelia’s mobile rang again, prompting her to hold it up. Chad waved a hand. “Thanks.”
“Right.” She left.
Meanwhile, Michael turned to speak to Livia. “Do you believe Chad planted these images for us to find and set himself up to be questioned so he could deny he had anything to do with the shooting?”
Livia took in a breath through her nose. “If so, he’s incredibly good at intrigue.”
“Pretty bold to let the men into the warehouse himself too. It may be we were wrong, back at the warehouse, and they did hack into the cameras, just not to shut them down.”
Chad had gone back to the computer, but he was listening. “What are you guys whispering about over there? Still think I did this?”
Candy relaxed back into her chair, Chad’s drink in her hand. She drained the rest in one gulp and then put the glass on the coffee table. “I don’t. Thank God.”
“If you did, you overthought it,” Michael said.
Chad didn’t look up. “It would be good to know who flagged that video.”
“Can you find out?” Livia was having a hard time maintaining her suspicions too. Chad’s excuses sounded credible in large part because they were so inept.
“Given time.” He handed the laptop back to Candy. “Do your stuff.” Then he stood up to add two ice cubes and more whiskey to his glass.
Returning to the sofa, glass in hand and his elbows resting on his knees, he looked from Livia to Michael and back again. “Let’s talk through the scenarios, whether or not I’m the evil mastermind behind them.”
They spoke together. “Okay.”
“Can we call the mastermind EM for short?”
They nodded. Chad did like naming things. And acronyms.
“I take as a base assumption that the men who did the work and the EM are not the same. Do you concur?”
Livia pursed her lips. “Likely he or she is powerfully placed and isn’t doing his or her own dirty work. So okay.”
“They probably wanted to keep their distance,” Michael said. “I concur too.”
“Right. The EM arranges with two unknown professionals—we’ll call them UPs—to subdue your guys, Livia. The UPs then come to the warehouse, to be let in by me. They wait until the interview is almost over to incapacitate the two light technicians, after which they open fire on the stage for all of three seconds. David disappears, and the UPs run, parachuting down from the roof on the west side of the parking lot, to be picked up by an unknown man. Possibly he was the one who subdued Terence, my guy who guarded the entrance, whom we still haven’t found. They drive away, and the first patrons start spilling out of the warehouse five seconds later.”
“That sounds about right,” Michael said.
“This means the shooters had some very specific help.” Chad started ticking items off on his fingers. “They needed one guy at least among Owain’s crew to tell me about the confetti. That person or another must have brought in the weapons also, since neither man was carrying a rifle case when I let them in.”
“It could be the same man in both instances,” Livia said. “He could have come in as a caterer, which would be the easiest method, changed his clothing, and turned himself into a tech for Owain.”
“Food service and janitorial are always the weak links in security,” Michael said.
“Plus they needed someone to drive them out of the car park,” Livia added.
“Interesting they needed that,” Chad said. “They could have done it themselves and saved the extra person. It isn’t as if the keys to a vehicle are so heavy one of them couldn’t have kept them in a pocket.”
“They didn’t know under what circumstances they’d be leaving,” Michael said. “It was smart to have someone else to watch their backs and be ready to go the second they touched down. As we see from the timing of the video, even a ten second delay could have resulted in them getting caught.”
Chad grunted. “So we have the two shooters, the fake tech person, the driver, and possibly one more if it wasn’t the driver who subdued my man at the car park entrance. The entire operation could have been done by four or five people.”
Chad tipped his head to Candy. “That brings us to the cameras.”
She’d stopped her typing and been listening with rapt attention. Now, she spun the laptop around yet again to show them a line of code. Both Michael and Livia leaned in to look at it.
“I don’t know what I’m seeing,” Michael said.
Livia let out a heavy sigh. It was what she’d expected, but she was still disappointed to see it. “It’s a digital fingerprint, left behind by someone who hacked the system. Can you trace it?”
“Yes.” Candy set to work again.
Livia was a tech person herself, so her own fingers had been itching to get to the computer all this time. She had to acknowledge, however, that Candy might be better than she was. Earlier, Chad had seemed unaffected by admitting it.
Michael looked from one to the other. “What exactly are we talking about?”
Livia sat back and allowed the sofa to envelop her. “I was ready to hang you a moment ago, Chad, but I’m thinking now my reaction was exactly what whoever did this was hoping for.”
Chapter Nineteen
4 April 2022
Michael
Michael moved silently about his room, trying not to wake Cade, who was sleeping in the twin bed closest to the windows. Michael had finally changed out of his bespoke suit into his more usual attire: boots, jeans, t-shirt, and suit jacket, in this case all in black. The color suited his mood.
Since he’d been tucked into bed, Cade had thrown off his covers, so Michael gently draped the duvet over the boy’s lower half. Michael himself had slept hot as a child, but it seemed nobody had tackled the settings on the central heating to adjust it for people being awake in the middle of the night, and the room couldn’t have been more than sixty degrees.
Hearing Amelia talking several doors down, he poked his head into the corridor, but then turned back to look at the sleeping boy.
The most terrifying thing in the world to a child really might be waking up in a strange place, surrounded by total strangers. Michael didn’t know what kind of sleeper Cade might be, but he wouldn’t leave him.
Instead he propped the door open a few inches and resolved to wait until Livia returned, as she’d promised to do. Chad h
ad finally taken pity on her and found her a laptop. Last Michael had seen, the three of them—Livia, Candy, and Chad—had been hacking away on their respective computers. As much as he enjoyed Livia’s company, watching someone else work on a computer was on a par in excitement with watching a microwave spin, so he’d left them to it. He stretched out on the bed closest to the door, his head on the pillow, going over in his mind the events of the evening for the hundredth time. The shooting ... the flash ... time traveling to the Middle Ages ...
Michael sensed a change in the air and sat up, his heart pounding, to find Livia peering around the edge of the door. She lifted a hand, and he glanced at Cade, who remained asleep in the darkened room. Michael rose and went into the hallway. He’d been lying down fully dressed, so he didn’t even have to put on his shoes. He didn’t think any of them would be getting much sleep tonight.
“I don’t want to go far,” he said.
“No. I thought we could talk quietly here.” Livia slid down the wall to the carpeted floor, ending up sitting cross-legged. She had changed her clothing too, and now wore a short but flowing black long-sleeved dress, yoga pants, and chunky black shoes she could walk in.
She looked good, but Michael laughed softly. “We look like we’re going to a funeral.”
“Let’s hope it isn’t ours,” she said with a rueful smile.
Michael left the door open just enough so he could hear Cade easily if he called out and sat on the floor across from Livia. She was holding two metal cups with lids, and she handed him one. “Coffee. Black.”
He took it and then looked at his watch, but what he saw on the screen prompted a gasp. “It’s nearly five in the morning!”
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