by AD Davies
As the blood seeped, he laughed. “You think this shit’s gonna work?”
I knelt beside him. “No, Gareth. Not at first. You’re a man without feeling. All you know is your own cowardice. Sure, you’ll hold out. For a while, anyway. But you’ll give in eventually. Thing is, the guy who brought you here, I’m guessing he used those ‘non-invasive’ techniques. Did he water board you, Gareth?”
Gareth wiped his nose. “And hit me a few times. It don’t work.”
“No, you’ve been to prison. You know how to take a beating. And you’re a clever bloke, right? Cleverer than anyone believes. Like most sociopaths. And that’s what you are, Gareth. A sociopath. You’re special, aren’t you? You deserve to hold power over people, whether it’s the women you abuse or authority figures you laugh at because they can’t get what they want. That’s why Agent Frank’s techniques didn’t work. You know waterboarding will end eventually. You knew that guy was on a deadline.”
“Yeah, he made that mistake. Told me what he was after when he found me. Torture only works if you think it’ll go on forever.”
“So. He kept you alive here. The duvet stops you freezing at night, but from the smell I’d say he didn’t provide a toilet. He keeps coming back to work on you, though. It’s something he needs. Something other than the USB stick I got off Sarah this week.”
He seemed shocked at her name at first. Then, with bloody teeth, his rat-like stubbornness grinned through. “You’re a psychic. Congrats.”
“No, a man like you will always resist basic pain.” I grabbed his wrist and twisted him into a lock that left his arm raised and his face pinned to the floor. Gripped one pinkie. “Say goodbye to this little piggy.”
“Like you’re gonna do that. Even the spook didn’t dare.”
“The ‘spook’ is in danger of being exposed as bent. He couldn’t risk hurting you properly. It’s more evidence against him.”
I applied more pressure to the finger.
“Hey,” Jess said. “We didn’t discuss this.”
“It’s necessary,” I said. “He won’t talk to us without it.”
“And what about you? Can you come back from … torturing a man?”
“I can’t come back from losing Harry. Not when it was in my power to save him.”
“You don’t see the hypocrisy?”
It wasn’t easy to argue back. But we were running out of time. I said, “Maybe I was wrong all these years.”
Gareth laughed and blood and snot bubbled out of his nose. “Good cop, bad cop. You’re both useless. Both dead when I’m finished.”
“Gareth, if we were sat here a week ago I would have just offered you money. That’s what you wanted all along. Stealing the USB drive, this ‘other item’ Curtis wants, selling Sarah. I’m betting I could offer you twenty grand and all this would go away.”
“Call it fifty and you got a deal.”
“That’s what I mean. Greed. You abuse women, you treat them like property, and if I give you money I just encourage you to keep on going. That much cash, it makes you attractive suddenly. Flash it around and a particular sort of woman comes running. You get her under your control and it starts all over again.”
“Hey, okay, thirty. I’ll take thirty.”
“No, Gareth. I’m through pushing money toward the filth of society. My money isn’t for the likes of you.” I firmed my grip on his pinkie. “Last chance.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
It wasn’t until I arrived at this moment that I was certain I could go through with it. But every word I spoke to him was the truth. Maybe there was more of a moral grey area inside me than I realized.
To Jess, I said, “I’m sorry.”
I twisted the bone and a tiny snap sounded, followed by Gareth’s animal-howl. I shoved his face into the duvet to smother it, knelt on his head to keep it there. I’d never done anything like this before, and the motion crept through my hands. But if beating him and waterboarding didn’t work, what choice did I have?
Jess looked away, a hand to her mouth.
I said to Gareth, “I don’t care about the MI5 guy. Just tell me what Curtis Benson wants. Tell me what you took aside from the USB stick.”
I released his head and he screamed, “I didn’t take anything else! I told the guy I’d given what he wants to Sarah, told him she had it, that’s all I’m telling you. Fuck you. Fuck you!”
I kicked his face into the duvet again and snapped his ring finger at the knuckle. Quicker this time. Easier.
I said, “I know Sarah didn’t have it. I met her.” I closed my hand around his next digit, cracked this sideways too. “I’m taking a hammer your toes when I get done with your hands. It’ll end when I run out of ideas, and not before.”
“Like I said…” Drool strung from his bottom lip. “Fuck you.”
“Damn it.” I held out my hand.
Jess hesitated, made a noise like a squeak. Her face remained stone, but her usual honey complexion had paled. She handed me the Taser.
I pressed it into the base of his spine, set it low, let go of his arm, and pressed the button. He danced on his belly as the voltage ripped into his nerve cluster, shooting out through every extremity. After five seconds, I let go. He slumped, no resistance left.
“It’s in my locker,” he said, gasping. “At my gym. But I didn’t steal it. It was mine. I swear. Benson’ll pay for it, though. He’ll pay.” When my expression didn’t alter, he said, “Figured I’d give him the stash when the funds cleared.”
I zapped the Taser in the air.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take you. Leeds Pride Gym.”
“Great, thanks,” I said breezily. To Jess, I said, “You know that gym?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “But this … this isn’t what I agreed to.”
I frowned.
She said, “I was okay you roughing him up, but this…” She gestured to the mangled fingers. “It’s too much.”
She didn’t say another word, just shook her head, and helped me tie Gareth up again, and we maneuvered him back out into the night.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Back on the street, the revelers partied on. Bhangra music chimed and thumped, colorful fabric spun and swayed. And I slunk out of Gareth’s back yard, encouraging him along with his arm in another painful lock, all the way back to the Land Rover. No one saw us, or if they did, they didn’t think it was worth breaking away from the celebration. I’d dressed him in the t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms Jess found scrunched in a corner, then blindfolded him with a rag from his own cellar and bound his hands with gaffer-tape.
Shortly before ten p.m., we parked outside the upscale Leeds Pride Gym and I asked Gareth which locker was his. He insisted on coming with me. I squeezed his injured hand and he squeaked out the number 890, plus the combination: 22, 5, 11. I used more tape to bind his hands behind his back, strapped his feet together, and hog-tied him on the floor of the back seat. I zapped him into unconsciousness with the Taser on a higher setting, a blanket shielding him from casual observers.
Inside, I told the receptionist I was thinking of moving gyms and asked if I could have a quick look round. She offered to give me the tour if I’d wait ten minutes for Rudy, but I said I’d rather look around myself if she didn’t mind. She did mind, clearly, but to appease a potential customer, albeit a bruised and disheveled one, she allowed me in.
Through a busy, modern gymnasium, I entered the men’s changing room and identified locker 45, a half-sized cupboard with a combination lock. None of the naked and half-naked men paid me any mind, so I was left to work.
22…
5…
11…
It unlocked first time. I slid out a full sports bag and unzipped it on one of the benches, removed two dirty towels, a couple of damp socks, a stinking t-shirt, and a pair of shorts that made me want to wash my hands before continuing. All designed to make the casual thief move on to the next locker.
I checked the zips—nothing
. Flipped the bag upside-down—nothing but a couple of crumbs sprinkled out. That left the contents themselves. I hated Gareth even more right then as I rummaged in the shorts’ pockets, finding more nothing, which left the socks as the only hiding place.
“Hey,” said a gruff voice. It was a member of gym staff, taller than me by an inch, biceps bigger by six. “Aren’t you the guy Rachel let through to look around?”
“Yes,” I said, turning a sock inside out. “And this place is a mess.”
“You better leave, mate.”
“I don’t think so.”
This last comment drew looks from the other men. Most were flabby office-types. I doubted they’d get involved.
“Out,” the gym-guy said. “Now.”
The third sock yielded a piece of plastic the size of a postage stamp. A 64GB SD card. The sort you’d use in a digital camera.
The gym-guy stepped toward me. “Put that back.”
I placed it in my pocket.
He said, “Are you deaf?”
I pulled out the Taser and, as I did with Gareth, zapped him. He folded in a heap and I turned to the collective gasp of office heroes and said, “If you all rush me at once, you’ll get me down. But some of you will go first. Anyone up for that?”
A few shook their heads, but most stared. Good.
I washed my hands, left the changing room, and returned to the Land Rover. Gareth hadn’t stirred. I booted up Jess’s laptop and accessed the DCIM folder on the card. While Jess drove, I unveiled the deep, dark secret.
Photos of Agent Frank meeting with Curtis Benson. Nearly a hundred of them, taken with a good zoom. Crystal clear. Dozens in an Indian restaurant I recognized as being close to Blazing Seas. Then a load in a park in the city center, the two men back-to-back on a bench like in a 70’s spy movie. A series from a popular coffee shop. Each location revealed a collection of snaps, exchanges of envelopes and, in one instance, a briefcase. The final set showed both men at the club while it was empty—in which Benson was clearly animated. It was date-stamped Friday 14th June. According to Lily, back when she danced for me, Benson confiscated something from Gareth around that time. Sarah and Gareth broke into the safe on Sunday 16th.
I copied all the photos across to Jess’s “Pictures” file on the hard drive. No encryption here to worry about.
So, Agent Frank knew Curtis Benson personally. Taking bribes, passing on information to the worldwide network of which Vila Fanuco was a prominent member. No wonder Agent Frank was so desperate for me to find them. He did all he dared to extract information from Gareth, which only pointed him to Sarah. But I think Agent Frank knew that wasn’t true. Which meant Frank wasn’t all the way psycho like those paying his back-handers, and he was unwilling to commit the sort of atrocities I was now able to perform, leaving him one course of action.
Jess was one of the best tech-heads I’d ever met, but she wasn’t trained in counter-surveillance, so I couldn’t blame her for what happened next.
As we descended a slight hill and entered the inner ring-road’s longest underpass, Agent Frank made his move, and his blue Mondeo clipped the rear offside bumper to send us into a fishtail. Jess gritted her teeth and fought the wheel, correcting course with a squeal of tires. It was more of a nudge than a genuine attempt to crash us; an assertive way to get our attention. I glared out the window as he gesticulated for us to pull off at the next ramp.
“Keep going,” I said.
We shot past it and I told Jess to pull in front of him. It’d be harder to send us off-balance if he was behind rather than at the side, but he predicted our play and sped up. Jess swerved back into the left lane. Agent Frank turned his wheel, but Jess was forced to brake anyway as a little yellow Fiat Cinquecento signaled left to exit the ring-road. The Mondeo hit the Fiat. The smaller car went into a spin, bounced off the central barrier, and landed across the two lanes. An articulated lorry slammed on its airbrakes and—spewing steam from its wheels and hydraulics—its trailer jack-knifed, blocking the entire road. Miraculously, nothing collided with the tiny Fiat.
Now all the traffic was in front of us it was easier to hold Agent Frank at bay by blocking his attempts to pass. A groan from the floor hinted that Gareth was coming round, but he was fairly harmless in his position. Still, I ejected the SD card from the laptop and pocketed it. I considered swallowing it, but a glance at the time showed two hours until midnight.
Jess said, “Adam?”
“You’re doing fine,” I said, as the frustrated Agent Frank tried to pass again.
“Adam!”
A wall of stationary traffic greeted us maybe ten seconds ahead. No exit ramp. This section of road was set into a valley of sheer concrete. Agent Frank was too close to us; he would not have spotted the traffic jam.
“Brake,” I said. “Now.”
She landed both feet on the pedal. We screeched to a halt. Agent Frank rammed into us. His airbag exploded in his face, and the impact first pushed me deeper into my seat, then slammed me forward into the dashboard. Jess was wearing a seatbelt, so she fared better than me—just winded.
Ribs screaming, I fumbled the door open. Taser ready. But Agent Frank was there; pretty spry for a guy with middle-age spread. He punched my wrist, releasing the Taser and slammed my head into the Land Rover’s door. I literally saw stars, staggering to balance.
People from the cars in front were on the tarmac, watching a man in a suit hitting another man, who already looked like he died once. They watched as Agent Frank swung a foot into my ribs. They watched as I screamed and dropped.
Jess climbed out of the Land Rover, pleaded for help, told Agent Frank to “Stop, stop, just stop!” The dirty MI5 agent drew a gun on her and she fell silent.
He said to me, “Hand it over, or I give our press officers a real challenge in making her look like a psycho who deserved a bullet.”
I propped myself up on one elbow. “Hand what over?”
He cocked the weapon. “Give it to me. I’ll tell Benson it’s safe.”
“You’ll get it to him by midnight?”
“There’s a bigger picture you’re not seeing.”
“I’m seeing a dirty cop, whatever way you spin it.”
Agent Frank gave me a rueful look, then bent down and pistol-whipped me across the right temple. The world tilted sideways and vomit rose in my throat. While his hands explored my pockets, he spoke to me. I couldn’t hear properly, and I couldn’t be sure the words coming from his mouth were real or if I was passing out. The words, though, if true, meant things had changed yet again.
When he found the SD card, he said, “Thank you.”
And through a blur of red-stained vision, I watched him reach into the Land Rover and take the laptop.
“I can’t be seen with Benson,” he said, “and his club’s gonna be busy right now. I’ll let him know as soon as I can. And I’m sorry about your friend. I really am.”
He took off, back the way we came, away from witnesses, away from us.
I lay there on the road, a failure. A failure for Jayne and for Harry, and for myself. I had nothing with which to bargain. I waited for the darkness to take me, which I knew would be shortly, no matter how hard I battled to stay awake.
Chapter Fifty-Five
All my muscles contracted and my limbs straightened in unison. A prickling sensation shot through me. The intensity increased and I opened my eyes to Jess’s smooth face leaning over me.
“What was that?” I asked.
She held up the Taser, depressed the trigger to set off the blue electrical spark. “Lowest setting.”
“Jesus, that thing’ll be out of batteries soon.”
“Thought it would bring you back more quickly than CPR.”
“No kiss then?”
She bent in and kissed me full on the lips. It lasted five or six seconds and I wondered if Harry had been right about her. But what was five seconds? A sister would kiss her brother if he came-to after being beaten unconscious. No tongue, eith
er, which was a bigger confirmation of Harry’s full-of-crap-ness.
“He took the laptop too,” she said.
A Saturday night crowd of motorists and revelers rubbernecked nearby, but no one ventured too close. Sirens sounded.
“Shit,” I said, and slumped my head on my knees. “He’s dead. Harry’s dead.”
Jess put her arms around me, and my head moved automatically from my knees to her chest. It was nice. Warm. Soft.
“Adam,” she said.
“Don’t try to make it sound better. I’ve screwed this up. All of it.”
“Here.” Without trying to budge my head, she showed me her phone. Like the one she issued at the start of all this, a five-inch screen. “You know I told you I got round the surveillance by using a wireless dongle?”
“Right. So they couldn’t trace it immediately.”
“It was attached to my laptop when you copied the photos.”
“The one Agent Frank stole. Yes, I get it.”
“You don’t,” she said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t still be head-fondling my boobs.”
I lifted my head under my own steam, ribs objecting in no uncertain terms. “What?”
“Moving anything into my ‘Pictures’ folder automatically uploads them to our cloud server when I’m on an internet connection. The 4G dongle was still attached, so the photos uploaded.” She flicked the phone to her internet-storage folder. “Look.”
The latest entries were photos. Around sixty of the hundred-or-so that I copied. Not enough time to send them all to our server, but plenty to prove to Benson I was in possession of the disk.
I said, “It might be all we need.”
“So go.”
I took her phone and braced myself against the pain as I stood. I kissed her full on the lips and when I pulled away she giggled through a huge grin and had to adjust her glasses.
“Thank you,” I said, and turned toward the crowd, but the sirens getting ever louder gave me pause. “Better to untie Gareth and tell him to run. Remind him he’s still a wanted man.”