by Adam Carter
Lin wanted to ask when precisely they would ever need someone trained by SO14, since Sanders seldom authorised the use of firearms. Lin had been working for WetFish for half a year now and had yet to see an officer with one. Still, again, it wasn’t Flynn’s fault. “You have a first name, Sergeant?” she asked.
“Daryl.”
She took his hand. “Sue. Come on, I’ll get you up to speed.”
“I appreciate this, Detective,” Sanders said, going back to his work. “Let me know how things go.”
They left the office and headed over to Lin’s desk. Unlike Sanders’s office, Lin’s desk was a tad more cluttered. Her mug bore a picture of a cat, although she really didn’t like cats, and she even had a few pictures dotted around to remind her who she was fighting the good fight for. Flynn noticed them, but did not comment. Lin was under the impression in SO14 conversation was discouraged. She figured Flynn would work out pretty well working for Sanders then, since it was one of the DCI’s cardinal rules.
Lin filled him in on her case and Flynn digested the information without question. He was the strangest new recruit she had ever seen. If there had been anyone to join WetFish since Lin she did not know of them, although when she had joined she had been so overwhelmed by the whole concept she really didn’t even know what day of the week it was half the time. But then she had been instantly paired with Baronaire, which wasn’t an especially good way of breaking in new recruits.
“So,” she said when they had reviewed the assignment, “how’d you get drafted then? I must admit I’m a little intrigued by the way Sanders recruits.”
Flynn stared at her with slightly narrowed eyes. “I was under the impression the DCI didn’t like people talking about things like that. Careless talk and all that.”
“Well, sure, but I …” She sighed. “I was just trying to break the ice, Sergeant.”
He smiled, although she wasn’t at all sure it was sincere. “Sorry, Sue. Just first-day nerves, I guess. Sanders requested me.”
It took Lin a moment to realise he was actually answering her question. “Oh,” she said. “We don’t use a lot of guns around here, I wonder why he saw the need.”
Flynn shrugged. “Maybe he’s having a change of heart.”
“Maybe he knows something the rest of us don’t.”
“Maybe.”
The small talk pretty much died after this and Lin figured the sooner she got her assignment settled the sooner she could go home for a nice long hot soak. They. As soon as they got their assignment settled, she corrected herself. They headed together to the car park. Lin had just about everything she needed to finish her assignment; all it would take now would be to go out and physically see to it. She had worked out the best way to catch a dealer dealing was to know where and when he would be doing it. She could have just planted a massive quantity of drugs on him, but that may have looked suspicious. Instead she had watched her perp and had seen him go straight back to work. Her perp was making her task a lot easier, and all she really had to do was phone it in when she got there and let the ordinary cops deal with it.
As they reached the car park Lin noticed a young blonde officer having trouble changing a tyre on the car she was intending to take out. A small smile tugged at Flynn’s lips then and he said to Lin, “Just be a moment.”
Lin did not know the officer’s name, but she had seen her around. Most of the male officers likely knew her name, Lin had no doubts of that. She was just thankful she had at last seen an emotion from Flynn. She was beginning to think he wasn’t even human.
“I’ll go start the car,” she said, leaving Flynn and the blonde to their work. Her own car was on the other end of the car park, and she climbed in and got comfortable behind the wheel. In her wing mirror she had a clear vision of the route Flynn would have to take in order to reach her, but there was no sign of him yet. She suspected she was in for a fair wait.
“I need to talk to you.”
Lin physically jumped, cracking her head on the ceiling. Rubbing at her aching cranium, she turned to find a man sitting in the seat directly behind her. He was tall, serious-looking and wearing an earth-brown trench coat.
“Baronaire? Jeez, what are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”
“We don’t have long. I couldn’t risk bursting two tyres, it would have seemed suspicious.”
“You burst the …” Lin shook her head. “Why am I even surprised?”
“I was in Folkestone.”
Lin blinked. “Random comment of the day.”
“I think Sanders was trying to get me and Jeremiah out of the way. I need to know why.”
“And I’m your private detective now am I?”
“I thought you were going to help me investigate Sanders?”
“I said I’d help find out what Sanders knows about you, not that I’d go snooping around him for anything else. Where’s Jeremiah anyway? Left him at the beach?”
“He’s investigating. Who’s your new partner? I haven’t seen him around.”
“Sergeant Daryl Flynn. Just transferred.”
“I don’t like him.”
Lin laughed. “You haven’t even met him.”
“He has a strange scent to him. Something I can’t place.”
Baronaire was a strange one, and he had unusual abilities. He understood hypnosis, and that was the least unusual of the things he could do. That he could smell something odd on someone was not something Lin doubted he could do. Or at least it was likely something he thought he could do.
“I’ll be sure to tell him to bathe for when you meet him officially,” she said.
“You’re not going to help me are you?”
Lin sighed heavily, purposefully making a show of it. “If Sanders finds out I don’t even want to think what’ll happen.”
“That mean you’ll do it?”
“Depends. What precisely are you asking me to do?”
“Something’s going down. I think Sanders might be moving against me.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
“Because he doesn’t trust me.”
“This to do with when you were captured last year?”
“No. Maybe that’s made him realise I’ve outlived my usefulness, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sanders was bringing in some big guns while I’m in Folkestone.”
Suddenly Lin was taking this as less of a joke than she had been. “Flynn’s SO14. Sanders requested his transfer personally.”
Baronaire was silent a moment.
“Is this bad?” Lin asked.
“I don’t know. It could be. I’ll have to liaise with Jeremiah and …”
“Well that’s sorted,” Flynn said, opening the passenger door and sitting next to her. He was just clipping on his seatbelt when he realised Lin looked startled. “Took quicker than I thought,” he said.
“You mean you found out she was married?”
But Flynn was frowning. Clearly her fake jovial tone didn’t impress him at all. He seemed to realise she was nervous about something to do with the back seat so he glanced behind them. Lin’s breath caught in her throat, but Flynn looked back to her and said, “What?”
She released the breath. “What? What what?”
“What are you so nervous about?”
She checked her mirror but there was no one in the back seat any longer. She had no idea how he had managed it, but Baronaire was gone. Just another weird thing she had seen him do. Or not seen, as the case may be.
“Nothing,” she said. “Let’s get out there and I’ll show you how we do things at WetFish.”
“Sure,” Flynn said, glancing behind him again as though he had perhaps missed something. “Sure, Detective. In your own time.”
Lin did not look back. She had no idea what Baronaire was up to, whether he was right about Sanders, and whether Sanders even had good reason to do whatever he was doing. But she needed to close up her assignment fast so she could get back the bunker. She had a ter
rible feeling things were about to fall apart in her absence. She needed to make sure the two men didn’t throttle one another to death before she could do something about stopping it.
CHAPTER THREE
Sanders remained in his office for a long time, dealing with paperwork and filing reports. Jeremiah knew Sanders had the blessing of his superiors, if not the support. They liked to know everything his organisation got up to, which deaths could be attributed to WetFish and which were rogue elements. Accountability was everything with WetFish, which was ironic since accountability regarding its officers meant nothing. Jeremiah had always seen WetFish as a tad hypocritical, but there was little humour to it. They were an organisation of killers, and whether they likened themselves to the Gestapo or to Knights Templar, they were still killers working for the government.
Eventually Sanders finished his work and put away all his papers, locking his drawers as always. Jeremiah watched it all, clinging to the shadows outside of Sanders’s private office. He often wondered what the old man kept in his drawers, whether Baronaire’s secret file was stashed away in there somewhere. Jeremiah smiled at the thought. Baronaire did like to think of things in the way of a child. Everyone had a reason for doing everything in Baronaire’s little world.
Sanders did not head for the car park, which meant he was not intending to go home just yet. Jeremiah had never been able to find out just where Sanders lived, and it was something of a bone of contention for him. All the other senior field agents Jeremiah knew inside out. He had visited their abodes, whether they realised it or not, and knew precisely how he could take them out if necessary. But Sanders was a careful man, and Jeremiah knew nothing about him. He had several times attempted to discover whether Sanders had any living relatives, but had always drawn a blank. Oh, what Jeremiah could accomplish if he could find someone Sanders cared about.
The possibilities made Jeremiah salivate.
Sanders headed for the storeroom. It wasn’t especially large, but it was where they kept all their paper and office supplies. Jeremiah had long suspected there were other storage areas dotted about the bunker, although had never been able to find any. There was a door in the wall close to Sanders’s office, although Jeremiah had never seen it open. Where it led to was yet another mystery, and the fact it was there simply tantalising. Knowing Sanders, it may well just have been painted onto the wall.
Jeremiah crouched low at a desk, his eyes ever upon the storage room, although Sanders did not emerge. He began to suspect the old man had gone for a nap, or that perhaps that was where he lived. That would explain why Jeremiah had never been able to find the man’s home.
“Uh, you mind if I have my desk back?”
Jeremiah started, having forgotten there was anyone else in the office. There were of course several officers at any given time, and Jeremiah’s skulking was likely beginning to look suspicious. The man standing before him, if man he could be called, was a teenage recruit of WetFish by the name of Barry Stockwell. He was wiry, badly dressed, with hair too long and glasses too dark and large and circular. It was as though he was trying his hardest to look like John Lennon, without the charisma or the talent. He was also obsessed with fish, which wasn’t even his most annoying habit. His desk was like a shrine to anything that swims, with montages, statistic sheets and various small and useless models.
“Shove off,” Jeremiah told him, turning back to his stakeout.
Stockwell stood there, mouth open. He pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose, looked about for someone to help him, but no one was paying the blindest bit of attention. Jeremiah had forgotten the young fool even existed, wondering where Sanders had got to, with visions of the man having pulled out the bottom ream of photocopy paper and now being buried in the stuff.
Something tapped him on the shoulder.
“Uh, Jeremiah?”
“You still alive?”
“I need to get back to work.”
Grunting his annoyance, Jeremiah turned back to Stockwell, standing to his full height. Jeremiah was a fairly tall man when he set his mind to it, and struck an imposing figure even without the anger currently burning in his eyes. Stockwell quailed before him, which was Stockwell all over.
“Go get a coffee,” Jeremiah told him.
“Oh, sure. You take sugar?”
“Not for me, for you,” Jeremiah snapped, resuming his observation.
A minute passed and then Jeremiah was aware of a face almost pressed into his own, and inclined his eyes to see Stockwell sagely staring at the storage room, as though they were expecting the Bigfoot to come lumbering out any time now.
“What are you doing?” Jeremiah asked as calmly as he could.
“Oh. Uh, nothing.”
Jeremiah’s felt his body tense and it was everything he could do not to grab the fool by his throat and throttle him to death. Instead he rose and stepped away from the desk. “Fine. Take it.” It was about time he settled this matter anyway. Stockwell slipped into his chair, having won a rather strange victory, while Jeremiah stormed over to the storage room with a cloud rolling thunder over his head.
He listened at the door, although could hear nothing. Casually pushing it open, as though he was intending to locate a pencil sharpener, he was surprised to find the room was empty. Closing the door behind him he strolled in, gazing around in surprise. The room was not that large, and there was no way anyone could be hiding behind the stationery cupboards. That there was a secret door somewhere was obvious, yet he could see nothing out of the ordinary. He moved across to the only wall which did not have a cupboard set against it and pressed his fingers to it, listening with his ear and tapping with his knuckles. It did not sound hollow, but then perhaps that just meant Sanders had hired the best workmen to build this place.
Jeremiah wondered whether Sanders had killed the architects and construction crew, had made them dig their own graves before shooting and burying them. But then he guessed it was just another construction job. No one involved in its creation would have known what it would be used for.
Shaking his head, Jeremiah turned back to head into the office proper. He had lost Sanders, but that didn’t mean he would …
Jeremiah started. Sanders was standing directly before him, arms folded.
“How the hell …?”
“You think you have a monopoly on disappearing acts?” Sanders asked dryly. “Why are you following me?”
“Following you? Don’t be absurd. I came in …” he looked about quickly, grabbing the first thing he saw, “for a hole punch.”
“You’ve been watching me for an hour now. I’ve never had a voyeur before, I was beginning to feel dirty.”
Jeremiah bit his lower lip. It seemed it was true what everyone said about Sanders: he really did have excellent senses, for an ordinary human being.
“I figured whatever it was,” Sanders said, “you might prefer to talk in here. Why aren’t you in Folkestone anyway?”
“We finished up early.”
“You filed a report yet?”
Just then the door opened and Stockwell poked his head in. “Everything all right in here?”
“Get lost, Stockwell,” Sanders barked, and the door closed faster than a cheetah with a bee up its backside.
Jeremiah could not help but smile. “Took me five minutes to accomplish that.”
“It’s called respect, Jeremiah. And maybe a little fear. You have to earn one, train people for the other. I don’t respect you and I certainly don’t fear you.”
“Maybe you’re a fool.”
“Hardly.”
Jeremiah suddenly realised his back was to the wall, that there were no secret passages after all, and if he decided to make a run for it he would have to barrel through Sanders. Somehow he was no longer certain even his ability to turn into a fine white mist would get him out of this one. There was something about Sanders which had always bothered Jeremiah. He had no idea what it was, but there was something special about him.
He wasn’t the same as Jeremiah and Baronaire, it wasn’t anything like that. But there was something unusual about him.
He supposed it was just superior knowledge and confidence.
Whatever it was, Jeremiah could both respect and fear it. It was only a shame one day they would come to blows and one of them would die.
“You’re planning, Sanders,” Jeremiah told him. “But what? Charles thinks you’re moving against us. Are you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Jeremiah tried to grin, although he was far too nervous. “We’ve served you faithfully for eleven years, Sanders. Why would you turn on us now? You brought Lin in to watch Charles and she reported that he was fine, fit for business.” He noted with satisfaction the mild surprise on the DCI’s face. He hid it well, but it had flashed briefly. “Yes, I know a lot of what goes on around here,” Jeremiah continued. “It has to be something else. Something’s happened. Something you don’t want us to know about.”
“If there was something I didn’t want you to know about, Jeremiah, I would hardly be answering your questions. Now, don’t you have a report to write?”
“Oh no, you’re not getting out of it that easily.”
“Fine,” Sanders said bluntly. “Maybe I’m tired of the subterfuge. Maybe I’m about ready to trust Charles a little. More than I ever trusted you anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“As you say, I’ve worked with the two of you for eleven years now. You’re the slickest, slimiest individual I’ve ever known, Jeremiah. You do your job because of the perks. And because you know that by working for me I won’t be hunting you down. If I didn’t need you, Jeremiah, I’d kill you. But then you already know that. Charles though, he’s not like you. He’s noble, sometimes even caring. He works because he sees the world as I do. He wants to make this country a better place to live. He doesn’t just want to take whatever he can from it and to hell with everyone else.”
“Believe it or not, I happen to love this country as well. I chose to live here, I could easily leave at any time. Maybe I should, just to get away from you.”
“You just try leaving the country, Jeremiah.”