“Nobody here,” said Bliss checking his wrist before realizing he’d left his broken watch in his suit pocket.
“It’s half past four in the morning,” said Yolanda as they stood back at the lift. “What shall we do now?”
He was looking very thoughtful. “What day is it?”
“Sunday,” she replied confidently, then corrected herself, “No, I think it’s Monday.”
“It must be Monday,” he said, quickly working it out for himself. “Do you realize we haven’t slept in a bed since last Thursday.”
“Well there’s no beds here, Dave.”
He nodded, “They must work here and sleep in another building. We’ll have to wait ’til they arrive.”
“What about the guard?” she cried in alarm.
Both had tried to forget the nearly-naked youth tied in the truck and the trace of a grin broke through Bliss’ serious expression. “We could brush him down, give him his gun back and say sorry.”
Yolanda shot him a look, then smiled. “You’re joking?”
“Come on,” he laughed, “I’ve got an idea.”
An hour later they snuggled together in a wide ventilation duct above the computer room. The guard, still bound and gagged, was lying in the bottom of the elevator shaft. “He’s quite safe,” insisted Bliss. “Although God knows what will happen when the day shift arrive and find him missing.”
“Let’s get some sleep,” suggested Yolanda with a yawn and she nuzzled into his shoulder and instantly nodded off.
The scream of a jet engine shook them awake a few hours later as the air conditioner revved up for the day.
“Stay here,” he whispered, then inched his way along the duct above the computer rooms to peer down through each of the gratings into the offices below. Hundreds of fingers were flying across keyboards, and technicians in white coats were fiddling with bits of machinery as they constructed and de-constructed computers. In one of the small rooms Bliss found what he was looking for—a familiar face—a face so typically British that it had to belong to one of the snatched men.
“Psst, psst,” hissed Bliss.
“What the …”
“Shhh,” he whispered, “I’m up here in the air duct. Don’t say anything. Just nod.”
The head nodded.
“Can you talk?”
The head swayed slowly from side to side. Then the man picked up a pen and wrote on a large scratch pad. “Wait a minute.”
“Peter,” he shouted across the room with a distinctly Welsh accent.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going for a crap boy’o. Back in ten minutes.”
Peter’s tone rose in confusion. “Why are you telling me? I hope you don’t want me to come and wipe your bum?”
The man was still writing. “Toilet—second room on left.”
“Won’t be long, Peter,” he continued, for the benefit of the guards, as he got up to leave.
Bliss slithered through the duct and sniffed out the toilet, the rustling of his clothes swallowed in the gush of forced air. The man was already sitting, the top of his bald head pixilated by the grid of the register. “We’ve come to rescue you,” Bliss whispered.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, head down, eyes boring at the door.
“Detective Inspector Bliss, Metropolitan Police.
The man was on his way out—set-up on his mind. “Yeah right—you expect me to believe that?”
“I am …” started Bliss, then paused, realizing that nothing he could say would persuade a determined disbeliever. “Tell me what I would need to do to convince you,” he continued, recalling his hostage negotiation training seminars.
The man re-sat, stumped, then took a chance. “O.K., say I believe you. How do we get out?”
That’s a good point, thought Bliss, realizing he had no idea. “How many of you?”
“That depends.”
Bliss didn’t understand and said so.
“There’s eight,” the voice continued, the owner quickly glancing up at him, “But they might not want to escape.”
Bliss’ voice rose incredulously, “Why?”
His eyes returned fearfully to the door. “Because of the Americans.”
Six had escaped, five men and a woman, world experts in their field. People who could coherently discuss data encryption, system analysis, and advanced programming in their sleep.
“What happened?” asked Bliss, then wished he hadn’t.
“Do you remember that downed pilot they tortured during the war. They showed him on T.V.?”
“Yes,” Bliss mumbled, wincing at the memory of the beaten pilot who’d been propped in front of the world’s T.V. cameras wearing a face more mangled than a horrifically mutilated horror mask.
“He looked good compared to what they’d done to the Americans,” he continued, adding, “Not the woman; they left her face alone, but she couldn’t stand up.”
From his perch in the ventilation shaft Bliss couldn’t see the terror in the man’s face as he recalled the occasion. The six Americans had been caught the same day they had escaped. Three days later the Welshman and his English colleagues were úshered into a room, “Come and say goodbye to your friends,” the Iraqi officer had said.
The Americans were propped upright in armchairs, their pulped faces staring blankly through slits in puffy eyelids; smashed hands and arms flopped at crazy angles in their laps. Few could speak and none had anything to say. One tried a smile of recognition but managed a toothless bloody grin.
“Say goodbye,” the officer ordered and the sorry group mumbled obediently, “Goodbye.” Then the guards entered and carried the shattered bodies outside.
The officer prodded them forward. “Come and wave,” he said.
“They shot them one at a time,” continued the fragmented face peering up at Bliss, pleading for some kind of help, “and they made us watch until the only the woman was left.” His eyes closed, trying to shut out the images but he kept talking. “They stoned her to death,” he said, as tears squeezed from between his tightly closed lids. “An’ that bloody bastard of an officer said, ’We always stone whores to death.’ And Mary, the Englishwoman, said ’Doris wasn’t a whore.’” He opened his eyes and stared at Bliss through the grating. “Do you know what that bastard said? He said that any woman who screwed forty soldiers in one night was a whore. Then he picked up a rock and hit her right in the face.” The tears were streaming down his face. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
Bliss found himself choking back tears. “You’ve got to get out. They know we’re onto them.”
The man wasn’t listening, the horrendous images torturing his mind were too powerful to let go. “Mary killed herself the next day,” he rambled, as if Bliss had not spoken. “Wired herself up to the power supply and switched it on. Blew every fuse in the place.”
Bliss tried again. “You must escape.”
“Ripped her eye out,” continued the man, his brain still struggling with Doris’ nightmare. “Then they all picked up stones—like a coconut shy at the fair—but the coconut was Doris’ head.”
“Sir,” tried Bliss, more forcefully. “They will kill us all if we don’t get out.”
“I know,” he replied, as if part of his brain had been listening all along. “We should try to get out. I’ll talk to the others tonight and give you a decision tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” exclaimed Bliss in a strangled shout.
“It’s the best I can do. We get an hour together each evening in our sleeping quarters. I can’t talk to the others during the day.”
Bliss was panicking. “What about lunchtime?”
“No go. They bring it round to us.”
Bliss suddenly realised he and Yolanda had no food and little water. Neither did he have any idea how they were going to escape. “Can you get any food and drink for us?” he asked. “We didn’t expect to spend another night here.”
“I’ll leave some in my filing cabinet,” he replied, pulling up
his pants, then he pointedly flushed the toilet and was gone.
chapter seventeen
“It’s the Home Secretary’s Principal Private Secretary.” The sergeant enunciated carefully as he handed the phone to Superintendent Edwards.
“Shit!” breathed Edwards.
“Edwards?” the manicured voice queried as he put the phone to his ear.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Glad we caught you so early,” the P.P.S. continued chattily, as if he were an old friend. “Thought you might be in late this morning after such a busy weekend. The minister would like to have a quick word with you, if that’s alright—is this a secure line?”
“Yes, Sir,” he replied, flushing the sergeant out with a wave.
“Hold on, I’ll transfer you.”
The phone hummed hollowly for fifteen seconds and Edwards began to wonder if he’d been disconnected. Then a click heralded the minister’s bouncy voice. “Well done Edwards, I understand your men did a good job with that LeClarc fellow. What happened by the way?”
“Well, we had a bit of a chase, Sir. The air-sea rescue people dropped one of our chaps onto a trawler off the Dutch coast. We’d tried getting a man aboard from a high speed launch, but the trawler was all over the place with no one at the helm.”
“Sounds like quite a caper old chap.”
Edwards chuckled as demanded. “Anyway, we got LeClarc back, but, unfortunately, the kidnappers had already got away.”
“So you didn’t actually catch anyone then?”
“No, Sir, the kidnappers …”
“Superintendent Edwards,” the voice broke in coolly.
“Yes, Sir,”
“Look, we think it might be in everybody’s interest to forget all this nonsense about kidnappers.”
“I’m not with you, Sir, there was definitely …”
The minister cut him short, “Superintendent, I’m probably not making myself clear. Let me explain …” he paused, “no I’ve a better idea, why not meet me in my club for a spot of lunch. Twelve o’clock at Queens’. Is that alright with you?”
“Fine, Sir …” But the phone had already clicked, chopping off his reply.
“Glad you could make it,” said the minister, pretending Edwards had a choice. The table, recessed into an obscure nook, had been specifically requested, and the minister guided him to a chair. “Had a bit of a bump, have we?” he continued, noticing the swelling around Edwards’ lip where King had thumped him.
“Walked into a thick plank,” he replied, keeping very close to the truth, as he saw it.
“You order exactly what you’d like,” said the minister, looking over the top of his spectacles. “Personally I shall start with a spot of the Paté Maison, they do it awfully well with just enough truffle to make it interesting—know what I mean?”
Edwards had absolutely no idea. “Of course, Sir, sounds good to me.”
“Then,” he said, scanning the beautiful calligraphy of the menu in its gilt frame, “I think the lobster.” He looked up with a smile, “Although you might not want more fish if you’ve been in Holland for a few days.”
“No, Sir, the lobster would be fine.”
The headwaiter, hovering obsequiously, swooped in to take the order the moment the decision had been made.
The wine came almost immediately, pre-ordered to give it an opportunity to breathe; a vintage Chateau bottled Burgundy. “Nothing special,” according to the minister, obviously relying on his department’s entertainment budget.
“So,” the minister leaned forward conspiratorially, “down to business.” His deeply shadowed eyes roamed the surroundings. “This is completely off the record,” he began, then paused, waiting for an acknowledgement.
Edwards nodded, “Naturally.”
“Good,” he said, beckoning him closer across the table with an almost imperceptible crook of his index finger. “Strictly between you and I,” he paused, ratchetting up Bliss’ discomfort. “And if I discover you’ve repeated any of it, I’ll deny every word and cause you an awful lot of problems. Do you understand?”
A tic twitched Edwards’ left temple causing a blink. “Yes, Sir,” he gulped.
“Good, good. Well you’ll understand our situation better when I’ve filled you in. More wine?” he enquired, downing most of his first glass in one gulp.
Edwards felt like saying, “For God’s sake get on with it man,” but settled for the wine.
With a final check to ensure they were not being overheard, the Minister started. “We’ve known about these …” he paused, searching for a suitable euphemism for kidnap victims, then started again, “We’ve known about these chappies for sometime. The Yanks cottoned onto it after they’d lost several of their top people. The trouble was we weren’t sure what was happening at first. There was always some plausible explanation; a body would turn up, or they’d be blown to bits in front of witnesses. A couple of them were in that plane that blew up over the Atlantic, one of ours and a Yank. Eventually we put two and two together and realised it was just too much of a coincidence.”
What was too much of a coincidence, wondered Edwards, completely in the dark, and who are, “We:” Special Branch, MI5, MI6 or some other government spy service too secret to even have a designation. “I’m not really with you …” he started but the minister silenced him with a twitch of the head and a warning look. The hors-d’oeuvres had arrived.
Once the waiter had moved away the minister busied himself picking out the bits of truffle. “Why do they insist on overdoing the fungus?” he complained rhetorically. Suddenly aware of Edwards’ presence he looked up from his task and started talking again, still dissecting the paté, still hunting truffle. “We’re pretty certain that the other side have got them,” he said in a doom-laden tone. Then, concentrating furiously, he scraped de-truffled paté onto a sliver of toast, took a bite, and closed his eyes. A rapturous expression worked its way over his face as the aroma flooded his mouth and he relaxed with a long, satisfied, “Mmmm.”
Edwards’ impatience got the better of him, “Sir.”
The minister pulled himself sharply back. “The point is we need to keep the whole thing under our hats. We can’t afford to let word leak out that these …” he paused and looked up, “that these chappies are still around.”
Edwards was no wiser and his puzzled frown clearly gave him away.
“I can see you’re not quite with me, Superintendent. Let me put it another way. If word got out that any of these chappies were actually working for the other side, it would cause chaos. Every system they’ve ever worked on would be vulnerable.”
Edwards was catching on. “But surely, all we have to do is change passwords and alter the systems.”
“I know that Superintendent, and so do you, but Joe Public doesn’t know that. If the man-in-the-street got wind their bloody piggy banks might not be safe, or the other side might be listening to their phones or reading their e-mails, all hell would break loose. God knows what would happen to the stock markets and oil prices.”
“I see,” said Edwards. “You believe public confidence would be jeopardized if they knew top people were missing, even if they weren’t in a position to do anything.”
The minister gave a smile that said, “Good boy,” then replied, “Actually we think that’s precisely what the other side’s playing at. You see, it might be difficult for these chappies to break into our systems, even though they are top people. But once we admit that the other side even have them, the damage is done.”
The waiter interrupted, “Everything to your liking, Sirs?”
“Too much truffle in the paté again, Phillips,” whinged the minister. Phillips was waiting; he got the same complaint every week. “I shall have a word with the chef, Sir.”
“Thank you, Phillips.”
The lobster, smothered in a thick cream sauce with a crust of Stilton cheese was, according to the smiling minister, pure cholesterol. “It’s alright as long as you eat plenty of vegg
ies,” he said, sliding the broccoli off to one side, pulling a face.
“Sir,” enquired Edwards, leaning forward, “Can I ask how many they have?”
“No idea,” he replied succinctly. “But between you and me we believe they’ve got at least twenty—maybe more. The Yanks have lost quite a few, but they’ve managed to keep it quiet. The widows have all been happy— as happy as widows can be I suppose. We’ve smoothed things over with the odd awkward coroner. If that King fellow hadn’t tipped us off about LeClarc, he would have been grabbed and it would have just been put down as someone missing at sea.” He stopped long enough for a couple of mouthfuls of lobster, then carefully scrutinized the august room before canting across the table with a serious eye. “Tell me Superintendent: Does LeClarc have any idea he was going to be kidnapped?”
“No, Sir …” started Edwards, but the minister silenced him with a finger.
“Think carefully before answering, Superintendent. Lives hang in the balance.”
Edwards obligingly put on a thoughtful face for a second before confirming, “I’m certain he knows nothing, Sir. He did ask about the strange men on the trawler, but we didn’t let on who they Were.”
“Perfect, perfect. And what about King? Can you keep him quiet about all of this—national interest, that sort of thing? Maybe we could give him some sort of award.”
“Um … um,” Edwards tried to butt in.
The minister warmed to his idea. “I like it. I’ll get someone to work on that right away. Nothing too fancy, give him an O.B.E. or something for unspecified services. Anybody asks, just lower your tone and tell ’em it’s all hush hush.”
The Fish Kisser Page 32