by Colin Wade
But, nothing. Nothing had happened since his failure to catch Rob. He couldn’t contact his father. He was not going to get another bollocking for his failures. He was on his own. As he tried to calm his rage and work out what to do next, he heard the familiar beep of his phone. His father. Hmm, maybe he wasn’t on his own. Maybe he could still be useful. The text message told him where they were.
*
The doctor examined Bianca and Sam. They were progressing nicely. Only a few more months and this would all be over. Thailand. Young boys. Waiting for his special attention.
*
The time finally arrived for them to leave for the clinic. To start with, Anya travelled in the front seat. As they got to the end of the lane that led to the clinic, they stopped and she lay down in the back as Rob covered her in the coats. Thankfully it wasn’t a particularly warm late spring day, so she wouldn’t cook. She had chocolate and water. It would keep her going on the long wait for darkness.
Rob set off down the lane to the clinic, picking up the CCTV cameras about a mile out. He desperately hoped that Anya was hidden enough and that there wasn’t some sharp-eyed security person about to stop them and blow the plan before it started.
He drove to the gate, opened the car window to fob his way in. The gates opened and he drove through.
“We’re in!”
Rob drove round to the left-hand side of the building and parked in the back part of the staff car park, as far away from the CCTV cameras as they could be. There were a few other cars in this part of the car park but they had to hope that anyone coming to their cars would not be interested in the contents of Rob’s back seat. Rob parked up and started to get out, whispering to Anya.
“Be careful. I will see you soon.”
A muffled “good luck” came from Anya as she settled down for a few hours’ wait. A wait that would test every bit of her distressed, agonised mind.
Rob got into work, spoke to his supervisor about what she wanted him to do, got his cart out and started cleaning in the communal areas near reception. He would have to organise his cleaning rota to be down nearer the secret clinic around the time it got dark, as this was when Clark would text them both and start the plan. Rob felt this could be the longest three hours of his life as he worried about the risks. He tried to concentrate on the work and hoped time would pass quickly.
*
Clark settled into ‘mission control’, aka the Clark man cave, ready to help Rob and Anya storm the clinic and get the last bit of evidence they needed. He had the gateway into the Fairport Medical servers, ready to hack the CCTV and the security doors. He had all the protocols in place. It would be like turning a light on and off. He just needed Snap’s help one more time to get the recording Anya would hopefully make secure and ready to send to the Met commissioner.
He logged into Proton.
KRYPTO:
Snap. Need you dude.
SNAPDEVIL:
Word up Krypto. What can I do for you?
KRYPTO:
The conspiracy. It’s on. We crack it tonight.
SNAPDEVIL:
Much excitement dude. What do you need?
KRYPTO:
The girl has the Three Wise Monkeys app. She is going to record it all.
SNAPDEVIL:
And you need it securely streamed and stored.
KRYPTO:
You are way ahead of me.
SNAPDEVIL:
Send me her mobile IP and will get it sorted.
KRYPTO:
I need to send a link to the police so it needs to be real time and untraceable.
SNAPDEVIL:
Ah, the gold service. It shall be yours Cinderella.
KRYPTO:
Legend.
Clark had packaged up the hard-copy evidence file that he and Anya had put together and gave it to a courier with express instructions for it to be delivered to the Met commissioner between 8 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. The link that Snap was creating would be emailed to the commissioner as soon as Anya got out. He hoped it would be enough and that the commissioner was clean. They desperately needed him to believe what he was reading. It was high stakes but it had to work.
Clark sat back, obsessively eating Jaffa Cakes. He always did this when he was nervous. Now all he had to do was wait. For darkness and the moment of truth. He raised a Jaffa Cake to his dad’s picture like he was making a toast.
This is it Dad. Redemption.
79
It was nearing 8 p.m. and it was beginning to get dark. Rob had manoeuvred himself so he was cleaning one of the clinic spaces which was quite close to where he needed to be. He hadn’t heard the beep of a text message yet. The wait was killing him.
Anya was getting stiff. The car was comfortable but over three hours lying still in the same place was beginning to grate. It was almost dark outside, so she took the risk of moving, quickly eating some chocolate and swigging some water. At the moment their luck was holding. She had not heard anyone outside the whole time she had been lying there. She got her phone out, willing Clark to send the message that it was a go. She had the app up on screen ready to start recording.
Clark took a deep breath and typed out the text message. This was the moment they had been working towards.
‘Go, go, go.’
Rob’s phone beeped. There it was. Time to go. His supervisor hadn’t been around for a while but he just had to go for it. He left his cart in the clinic room he had been cleaning, poked his head out the door and headed down towards the clinic and the fire door, where hopefully Anya would be waiting.
Anya’s phone beeped. There it was. Time to go. She got out of the car on the opposite side from the CCTV. It was pretty dark and she began to move towards the end of the building where the fire door was. She turned on the app, put her phone in her top jacket pocket and started a whispered running dialogue, desperately hoping that Clark was listening and recording.
Clark could hear Anya’s whispered commentary. She was out of the car and moving. He hacked into the building management system and disabled all the CCTV and fire alarms. Now the game had started. Would the security team catch them at it and ruin their plan at the first stage? Clark kept his fingers crossed. He ate another Jaffa Cake.
*
Jim Bartley, the Head Security Guard at the Loughborough Clinic was sitting nattering to the new boy, Gavin Wheatley, who was a bit of a prat and thought he knew it all. Jim would sort him out though. The youth of today. Think they have all the answers to everything. As they sat chatting about the weekend’s football, all of the CCTV suddenly went blank.
“What the hell?” said Jim. Gavin looked on, vaguely uninterested. Jim tapped away at the CCTV management system. Nothing. The bloody thing had crashed.
“What do we do?” said Gavin, rather unhelpfully.
“I’ll have to get IT to come and have a look. They might have to reboot the server to get it back online.”
Jim phoned the IT guy, who said he would be there in a couple of minutes. They decided they would need to do a perimeter foot patrol and internal check if the IT guy couldn’t get it fixed quick. They didn’t want the wrath of Dr Normandy.
*
He had reached the hotel in Warwick where his father had texted to say Rob’s credit card had been used. He decided to front it out and went into reception.
“Hi, I was wondering if Rob Simmons and Anya Novak are in the hotel. I am a friend of theirs and I was hoping to catch them. They said the
y were staying here.”
The receptionist looked at him a bit suspiciously but still gave him what he needed. “Yes, they are still staying at the hotel, but they went out a few hours ago and have not returned yet. Can I leave them a message?”
“No, that is fine, I will ring them and arrange another time,” he said in his most charming and unthreatening way, despite the rage rising once again.
*
Rob moved as fast as he could without looking too suspicious. Clark had texted him saying that the CCTV and fire alarms had been disabled. He got to the fire door and pushed the bar to open it. No alarm. He looked out. Anya wasn’t there. He waited what seemed like an age, but was probably only thirty seconds, when she suddenly came into view. They embraced quickly, shut the door and headed for the clinic entrance. Rob told Anya to be careful and rushed back to his station. Anya continued her dialogue.
“I am at the clinic door, can you let me in?”
A few seconds later the door made an audible click. Anya pushed it tentatively. It gave. She pushed it some more and sneaked in as quietly as she could, entering into a corridor. She could see several rooms and other doors up ahead. “I’m in,” she said and got the phone out of her pocket to start recording the sound and images that would nail this conspiracy.
*
Clark quickly switched back on the CCTV and fire alarms. Now, all he had to do was listen and watch the live feeds that Anya was hopefully going to record which would give them what they needed. Then he had to get her out, safe and alive. He wondered whether the Met commissioner had received his parcel yet. The tension was unbearable.
*
Rob got back to his station. His supervisor wasn’t there. He had got away with it. For now.
*
Just as the IT guy got into Jim Bartley’s office, the CCTV suddenly flashed into life. “Well, I’ll be,” said Jim, “you IT guys only need to walk in the room and things are fixed.” Very strange. They had lost about four minutes of CCTV images but did a check on each camera and couldn’t see anything untoward. They would double check things in their next routine patrol, which was scheduled in about twenty minutes. They made a coffee and sat back down, chatting and occasionally watching the monitors.
*
Anya’s heart was beating much faster than usual. She didn’t know if Dr Normandy was in the clinic, so she crept along the corridor as quietly as she could. As she moved further along the corridor, recording the images but trying not to speak too much, in fear of being heard, she suddenly came across a room that made her stop in her tracks. She gasped audibly. Clark was watching.
Lying in the room, apparently comatose on a bed, with a variety of tubes going into cannulas in her arms, was a young lady. She had the signs of a visible pregnancy bump under the covers. She was fair-haired and looked English.
“My God, are you seeing this? This is what we need.” Anya walked into the room and recorded everything she could see. She knew she had been exactly where this poor girl was now. It was one of her visions. The tubes, the machines, the coma.
She peered out of the room along the corridor. All was still quiet. She reached the next room along and there was the other girl. She was in the same position, lying on a bed, apparently comatose with all sorts of wires and tubes hooking her up to the machines which were obviously keeping her alive but very much incapacitated. She also had a pronounced pregnancy bump. The girl had a slightly darker complexion, a beautiful Mediterranean glow.
“My God. This is awful but this has to be Bianca and the other one has to be Sam. We have found them. It’s real. This is what happened to me. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
She fought back the tears.
Clark watched on with amazement. Anya was getting everything they had hoped for. This was the last bit of evidence that would nail these bastards. He texted Anya.
‘Get out. We have what we need.’
Her response made his heart sink.
‘No. I need more. I need more answers.’
Anya looked down the corridor again. Towards the end was a door that looked like it went into a large room, based on what she could see from the small window in the door. Suddenly a head flashed across the door window. She ducked back quickly. It must be Dr Normandy. Shit! She turned the other way down the corridor and tried a large double door that was more or less opposite where Bianca and Sam were being held.
The door opened easily and as she entered, she was blinded by the bright lights all around the room. In the middle of the room was an operating table, with machines and monitors all set up for surgeries to be performed. Clinical instruments were all laid out ready. As she scanned the room, she saw it.
LEXICON THEATRE
Her legs almost gave way. The surge of emotion overwhelming every functioning part of her body. This was it. LEX. The visions, the nightmares. She had been here before.
Dr Normandy was sitting at his desk when one of the internal alarms went off. Someone had entered the operating theatre. He opened up his computer and looked at the camera that fed images from the theatre. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Anya Novak was in his theatre. How the hell did she get in? He did what they agreed if this ever happened. He texted the one man that would sort this out.
‘Code Red’
*
He was sitting in his car in the hotel car park pondering his options when his phone beeped. It was a text from Dr Normandy.
‘Code Red’
Now he knew where they were. He sped off towards the clinic. Time to end this thing.
80
Mark Chesterfield, the Met commissioner, was still in his office and it was just past 8 p.m. It seemed the job of the commissioner never ended. He had been in the post just over a year, having accelerated through the ranks as an officer within the High Potential Development Scheme. His successes in various police forces, including significantly improving performance and detection rates as chief constable in his last force, had brought him to the attention of the home secretary and mayor of London when the post became vacant. He was doing a good job in London but his life was about to be turned upside down.
His poor put-upon assistant was also still there and she walked in the room with a package that had been delivered to reception at Scotland Yard with a message to get it to him urgently. As a matter of national security.
Mark frowned and took the package. He was about to go home to try to see his kids before they went to bed. It didn’t look like that was going to happen again tonight.
He opened the large parcel and was confronted with a myriad of documents and a covering report. He read the report and started to look at the other documents and pictures. His gut began to tighten. He couldn’t believe what he was reading.
This can’t be real. What the hell is going on? How can the PM have stolen a child? This is nuts.
The more he read, the worse it got. Girls being exploited to produce babies for childless couples. Large amounts of money changing hands. Police corruption. Murder.
He sat back in his chair, trying to take in what he was reading. There were no contact details from the sender. It was anonymous. Was this just a crank?
He read it over and over. He decided he would have to keep this to himself until he could assess what the hell to do. The bottom line was he could not go and arrest the prime minister without watertight evidence. He told his assistant to go home, locked his office door and read it all again. Hoping for some divine guidance. If he got this wrong his career would be over.
*
Anya pulled herself together. There was another text from Clark willing her to get out. She put the phone in her jacket pocket and turned towards the door. In that instant the game changed.
Dr Normandy stood in the doorway.
“Well, well, Miss Novak. Just what the hell are you doing here?”
Years of rage welled up in Any
a. Here was the bastard that had done all these awful things, standing right in front of her. In a movement so fast that Dr Normandy didn’t have a chance to react, she picked up a scalpel and lunged at him, knocking him flying to the floor. He was small and scrawny, going down easily and landing with a heavy thud. Anya was onto him in a second, with the scalpel aimed at his throat.
“You absolute bastard. You sold my baby!”
Dr Normandy didn’t try to struggle. She had her full body weight on his chest and was surprisingly strong.
“Anya, put down the scalpel. I will tell you anything you want to know. Please don’t hurt me.”
The rage was burning in Anya. She wanted to kill him, but she needed answers. The rational side of the brain suddenly kicked in and she dragged him up, dumping him in a nearby chair with the scalpel ready to strike. He sat there. Pathetic and seemingly defeated.
*
Clark could hear the commotion but there were no pictures as the phone was in her pocket. He could hear another voice.
Shit, she has been caught.
He was just about to text Rob to go to her aid when he realised Anya sounded like she was in control of the situation. It sounded like she was speaking to Dr Normandy and he was pleading with her not to hurt him. Go Anya!
He decided to listen and wait. If she could get him to confess to his dirty deeds this would be gold dust. It was worth the risk. At least that’s what he told himself.
*
The scalpel still hovered close to his throat. Anya had never been more focused.
“You need to tell me right now where my baby is. You sold it to James Hardacre. Didn’t you!”