You Think You Know Someone

by J B Holman

  ‘I have to go to the office,’ announced Julie abruptly. ‘I’ve got no choice.’ Foxx looked at her like she was mad. ‘Newbury, not Cheltenham. My access has probably been barred, but I can bluff my way in and borrow someone else’s terminal.’

  ‘Why? What can you do there that you can’t do here?’

  ‘Almost everything. In the office, I have access to an infinite amount of information. Like when did Bettie work for Tenby? Did she ever work for Ops?’

  She stopped, made a connection and continued. ‘Tenby had tonsillitis for six weeks.’ Foxx looked disbelieving. ‘Yeah, I know. Six weeks! Wimp! Anyway, if she was working for him at that time, would she have been redeployed anywhere else while he was away?’

  ‘Like with Blackheart, for example?’ added Foxx.

  ‘Exactly. I can also find out if she still has access to Tenby’s emails and when she last accessed his PC. But I have to be in the office to do that.’

  ‘OK, take the car. I’ve got the bike, if I need it. Go, be safe, and do – not – get – arrested!’ They kissed. ‘And get dressed first!’

  She stepped out of the hotel, crossed the crowded street and clicked open the car door.

  Dirk lowered the dark visor across his face, clicked the bike into life and clunked it into gear. Sometimes the heart, however black, knows best.

  The Assistant Private Secretary left the DPM’s office and picked up her phone to call Julie again.

  ‘And I need it now,’ boomed the voice of her boss unseen from behind her desk. She put down the phone and made a mental note to call Julie later. What the boss wanted, the boss needed to have.

  Julie headed across North London, aiming diagonally through the metropolis towards the M4 that shot westward from London and in fourteen junctions would take her to Newbury. She saw a motorbike in her rear-view mirror. She slowed, so it would catch up and she could see if it was like Duncan’s. Old habits die hard.

  He was four cars back. She dropped motorbikes from her mind and took a left. Two cars followed; and the bike. It was a large bike, maybe it was like Duncan’s. One of the cars behind her took a right.

  She pulled up at a set of red lights. The car behind her pulled up to her left, then filtered off as Julie’s lights remained red. The large black pulsating motorbike pulled up next to her. She despised motorbikes, but could never stop herself from looking. It was the Duncan in her. It was a Honda, a big black, powerful, noisy Honda. Duncan would have approved.

  The rider notched it into neutral and sat back. She glanced up. He was looking at her, she knew it, even though she couldn’t see through the visor. She smiled curtly and dropped her eyes. He was tall. Her eyes rested for a second on his belt. The buckle hit her subconscious like an Exocet. It was him - Blackheart. He’d found her.

  He slipped his far hand into the rear pannier, pulled out a gun and pointed it at her head. She slammed the throttle, jumped the red lights. He had to belt his gun and click into gear. He roared up behind her. It took but seconds. He was beside her, gun being drawn once more. She braked sharply, he braked. She powered forwards, he did the same. There was no left turn and no right. And there was no one around. She was trapped - like a fish in a barrel.

  He raised the gun and pointed it at her head.

  She flicked the steering wheel to the right, smashed into his bike. He wobbled, careered out of control, regained his balance and pulled back the throttle in chase. She flicked the steering wheel again and knocked the bike sideways. It fell, it slid. He flew. He was down. She floored the throttle. The last she saw in her rear-view mirror were man and bike sprawled across the floor.

  ‘Eduard. Eduard,’ she screamed down the phone. ‘Blackheart. Gun. Oh my god!’

  She explained. He told her to take a route that was not so obviously heading south west. She did. She drove for ten minutes, hardly taking her eyes off the mirror. She took lefts and rights, and headed back into town before heading back out, losing herself in the maze of London, hiding in a city of ten million people. She pulled up at a junction, waiting to cross, but the morning sun was low and dazzling. She lowered the sun visor to see more clearly, and there on the other side of the junction was a man, a tall man. Blackheart. It was impossible. He waited for a car to pass, then raised the gun. Julie flung open the door, reflecting the sunlight back into his eyes, as he pulled the trigger. The light momentarily blinded him. The shot missed and she headed her car straight for him. He shot twice more. Her head was down. She mounted the kerb. He ran. She hit him. He rolled off to the side, very undead. She left the kerb and sped down the road away from him.

  What would Foxx do? She was driving too fast to phone. With no original thought, she did exactly what Foxx had done. She was just north of Paddington. She sped down the fastest road she could find, took a myriad of illogical turnings, found a railway line, took a screaming left, flew past the businesses under the arches until she found a garage. She swerved in and braked hard.

  ‘Service it. I’ll pick it up tomorrow,’ she shouted behind her as she left the car, radiator steaming, scarred by collision and punctured by gunshot.

  She ran hard, along the railway line past the arches, across roads like she was a blind person playing ‘Chicken’, down alleys, past the back of shops, exactly as Foxx had done, until she came to a canal. One hundred yards to the right was a footbridge. Moments later, she was on the other side of the canal, out of puff. She hopped on a bus, hopped off and dived into the Tube. She darted down to the platform, took a train, changed train, headed back on herself two stops, got off and left the station. She was safe. She looked for a cab. None to be found. She rounded the corner and saw a minicab office. She grabbed a car and ordered him to take her to Newbury. She lay low on the backseat and counted her blessings.

  This spy malarkey was not for her.

  The bang smashed out the windscreen. The blood splatter covered the back of her legs and his brains coated the back window. The driver slumped in his seat, shot, with half a head and no life. The car charged forwards, out of control. She waited. It took only seconds before it smashed into parked cars, spun over and slid on its roof before ramming harshly into the motionless brick wall of a suburban garden. Julie was thrown and hurled like a rag-doll in a spin drier. Her body flexed and bent, her bones collided with metal and the sudden inertia took the wind from her lungs. She waited for the next shot.

  It didn’t come. There were police sirens. They were almost upon her. She ignored the pain. Within moments, she slid snake-like out of the window, along the pavement and into the small garden of a private terraced house. The police sirens were only feet away. As she slid down the side of the house and into the back garden, the police had arrived at the scene. She was out of view. She stood and ran, over the back wall and hobbled down the grassy driveway that ran along the backs of the houses. She grabbed her phone.

  ‘Eduard. He’s fucking psychic. I can’t lose him. I dumped the car, ran, took buses, switched tubes, doubled back on myself and still he found me.’

  ‘It’s your phone. Dump your phone. He’s following the phone.’

  ‘OK. OK. Got it. Dump the phone,’ repeated her panic.

  ‘And now I have to dump this one. If he’s on to you, he’ll be on to me. Go. Dump it.’ She ran. He sprang into action. The hotel was no longer a safe haven. It was time to go.

  Julie ran to the end of the alley, tempted just to toss her phone over a wall into a garden, but didn’t. As the road emerged ahead, the traffic was slow. Lorries passed at no more than ten or fifteen miles an hour. She readied to toss the phone onto one of them. It rang. It might be Eduard. She looked. It was her best friend, Selina, the APS of the DPM. No time to take the call. She had to dump the phone.

  ‘Come on Connor, pick up the phone. I am not leaving this stuff on your voicemail.’ It rang out and stopped. Selina dialled again.

  ‘Pick up, you witch,’ she said to herself, with benign affection. It rang and it rang.

  Julie stood there frozen. Answ
er or run. Answer or run. Good sense said run.

  She clicked answer.

  ‘Yes, yes, quick, I have to run.’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ said her friend taken aback. ‘It’s nothing. It can wait. Are you OK?’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Julie urgently.

  ‘It’s just that you said the PM was flying tomorrow. He’s not. It’s been changed. He’s flying today. In about two hours.’

  ‘Shit! From Northolt?’ she asked knowing that every extra second on this call was a second closer to her death. Ditch the phone, ditch the phone.

  ‘No, Biggin Hill. It’s a big secret. The DPM is only one of less than half a dozen people that know. Tenby’s the pilot. Fancies himself. Used to be RAF.’

  ‘You’re perfect. A star. Love you. Gotta go.’ She hung up and dialled Foxx. It just rang. Oh god. He’s dumped his phone.

  She clicked off the call, tossed her phone onto a passing skip lorry and ran like hell in the other direction. She defied the obvious. She took a left and a left and a right and used alleys when she could. She came out on a small parade. There was a bike shop, a motorbike shop, full of bikers. She walked into the middle of the shop and shouted.

  ‘I need help. I need to get to Newbury in forty-five minutes. I’ll pay you £200 if you can get me there. Who’ll help me?’

  This was England. Everyone looked away or looked at their feet. No one spoke.

  ‘C’mon!’ she disparaged. ‘Can you ride fast or not? Who’ll help?’

  ‘I will, lady,’ said a strong voice behind her. ‘You know you got blood over the back of your legs?’

  ‘Yes, my boyfriend did that. He beats me up. Now, get me the fuck out of here.’

  Duncan would have loved it. How she would have loved it, if it had been Duncan. He rode fast and smooth. Google said one hour, nineteen minutes; the bike said thirty-seven minutes as they arrived at her now favourite and familiar Hilton hotel, just off Junction 14. She cleaned up, did her hair the best she could and got back on the metal stallion. He took her to the door of an office block on the other side of Newbury.

  ‘Can I borrow your phone for a quick call?’ she asked meekly. He handed her his phone. She tried Foxx one more time. He answered.

  ‘I told you to dump the phone. He’ll kill you. Dump it!’ he yelled down the line at her. The biker looked. He couldn’t hear the words but he could hear the shouting. Julie moved further away and spoke quietly and rapidly.

  ‘It’s not my phone. The PM; he’s flying today. From Biggin Hill. Last-minute switch. Tenby is the pilot. Takes off in about an hour. The DPM knows, therefore Bettie knows, therefore Blackheart knows. Foxx, it’s all on you. ’

  ‘Got it!’ he said sharply. ‘Go. Get Slaker. See you on the other side.’ And he was gone.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said to the man in dirty leathers, as she deleted the last number called and handed back his phone.

  ‘Dump him,’ he said. ‘Don’t call him, just dump him. He’s trouble.’

  ‘You’re right there. Maybe I will. You’ve been a hero. Thank you.’ She gave him £200, as promised, and a kiss on the cheek for good measure.

  She stared at the anonymous nameless office block that was the GCHQ-2, HQ. She glanced through the glass doors before running the gauntlet of the GCHQ-2 security guards that protected the building.

  She knew the danger.

  She took a deep breath and headed in.

  30

  Flight Tracker

  Foxx was frantic.

  When he woke up that morning, his father had been safe. The pilot, who was the perpetrator, would have kept the flight on track. But now the perpetrator was the victim, they were flying from Biggin Hill and they were flying today. His world was upside down.

  He called his dad. The phone was off. He called his dad’s office. They were cagey and useless. He called Biggin Hill and demanded to leave a message for the Prime Minister.

  ‘Yes, sir, very funny. So far this week, we’ve had bookings from two Obamas and a Trump; last week we had M. Theresa, Mr W. Anchor and an H. Potter with his girlfriend Val de Mort,’ said the pedestrian old man on the phone; he was clearly going to be of no help.

  Biggin Hill was well over an hour from Foxx’s current location; he made it in twenty-two minutes. The Rafiqs knew how to tune a motorbike.

  Julie approached the security desk with a swagger.

  ‘Hi, Frankie. Long time, no see. How’re you doing?’

  ‘Doing fine, Miss Connor. My Janice has had a baby girl since I last saw you.’

  ‘So, you’re a grandfather?’

  ‘Yes, and loving it.’

  ‘I haven’t got my pass on me. Can I get a temporary? I’m only going to be a minute.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You’re hardly likely to blow us up, are you?’

  He handed her a pass and in she went. She waited for alarms to ring or for armed fighters to rush out, but everything was normal, disturbingly, boringly normal. She logged on as her assistant and started searching. The HR system was unfamiliar, so it took longer than she wanted. All she had to do was prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bettie Slaker could have done it. She had motive, but did she have means and opportunity?

  She got into the HR system: Search, click; Employees, click; Bettie Slaker, click; Service History, click. Employment Record: Three years and seven months. She had a pension, a health record which confirmed her disabilities, appraisals for every year – all blank. She worked as Executive Assistant to Nickolas Tenby and for a period of five weeks, at the time her husband had tonsillitis, she had worked on a temporary re-assignment.

  Where? Click: Operations.

  ‘Yes!’

  Connection number one.

  When she was in Ops, Bettie had attended a conference for undercover operatives. Mr Foxx was not there, but Mr Swengen was. Bettie knew, or had at least met, the black-hearted Dirk Swengen.

  Connection number two.

  But had she invaded Tenby’s computer? Had she got her husband’s passcode? Did she log in as him? How the hell could Julie find that out?’ She wandered to where the geeks lived and homed in on her chosen socially inept, infatuated favourite.

  ‘Hi, Neil,’ she said, knowing she already owed him. ‘I need you to do something else for me.’ She sat next to him, with her hand carelessly on his leg. ‘I need you to go back into Nickolas Tenby’s home computer and find out if it was accessed by his secretary of old, Bettie Slaker. Can you do that?’ She slipped her hand a little higher up his leg. His fear of authority wanted to say no; his fear of losing the lustful attention of a good-looking woman said yes. Lust won.

  ‘Are you using me?’

  ‘Yes. Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘No. I was just asking. I’ll get on it right now,’ he said obediently.

  Julie sighed with relief. They were winning. Foxx would stop Blackheart from blowing up the PM and from finding her. She would prove it was Bettie and get the Anti-Terrorist Squad on to her; and together they would stop the coup. Success was so close she could almost touch it.

  Not even with a gun to his head, did the man at the Biggin Hill reception desk talk. He knew nothing. Foxx wished him no harm, but he had to stop him calling the police. He dealt with him as gently as he could, then darted up the stairs to the control tower. There was one lone man on duty.

  ‘Where’s the Prime Minister?’ Foxx asked as he pulled out a gun and explained, ‘I’m trying to save his life. The more you delay the greater risk his life is in. Now help me. Which is his plane?’

  ‘That one,’ said the man, pointing at a sleek business jet, motionless on the ground, just off the end of the runway.

  ‘So he hasn’t taken off yet. Thank god.’

  ‘Thank god indeed. It was a narrow escape. At the last minute, they discovered that the plane was faulty, but luckily another plane had just flown in, let’s see, from Torquay. They hired that at the last minute.’

  ‘Where is it? Where is it now? Show me.’


  ‘Just there.’ he said, pointing. ‘At about 2,000 feet and rising sharply. The Head of the Secret Service is flying it.’

  ‘Get them on the radio.’

  ‘No can do,’ said the controller, who was clearly getting much too used to having a gun at his head. ‘We lost radio contact as soon as the wheels left the ground. At first, I thought it was a fault, but then realised it’s all hush-hush Secret Service stuff and they will have their own comms with the pilot and the PM.’

  ‘So, we can’t contact them?’

  ‘Not unless you’re in the Secret Service and you know all their mumbo-jumbo.’

  Fox grabbed his phone again and dialled his father’s number. It didn’t even ring, it was dead.

  ‘What’s their call sign?’ asked Foxx. He clicked into his plane tracker app and watched his father flash his way across the Kent countryside climbing ever higher.

  ‘Get me the Air Force!’ demanded Foxx. The controller looked quizzical.

  ‘What, all of them?’ He didn’t have the number.

  ‘How long until he hits the coast?’

  ‘About six minutes.’

  ‘Of France?’

  ‘About ten minutes.’ Foxx did a mental calculation. It couldn’t be done in time. He couldn’t get an RAF plane off the ground in that time, let alone intercept. And anyway what would they do? He needed to think.

  ‘Where did they board the new plane?’ he asked.

  ‘Down there by Hangar Number Two.’

  Foxx sprinted down and ran into the hangar, a phone was ringing. He followed the sound to a cupboard. He opened the door and out fell the PM’s two personal bodyguards, tied, gagged and undignified.

  ‘Who did this?’ asked Foxx. ‘Was it a tall guy about six, four, scar on his face?’ They nodded.