Ritual execution.
Tie hands.
Kneel.
Hold tight.
Bang!
Oh my God.
No.
Please, no.
The red mist was gone. Dispersed; thrown around the room with Ginny’s blood. There was no focus now. No tension. No steel. Sam felt floppy. Weak. Inept.
Why Ginny? Why her?
Why does this keep happening?
What is wrong with me!?
Ginny was close to perfect. Beautiful. Fun.
Dead.
Sam tried to stop herself, but couldn’t.
She turned to find Ginny’s sink which was in the far corner of the room, next to the balcony doors. She didn’t make it.
Her stomach emptied its contents. It projected across the back of Ginny’s bed, spraying the sheet and mottling the thick-pile carpet. Her second heave found the sink, but such was her weakness that she still couldn’t control it. Taps. Tiles. The carpet. Everything got a bit.
The third retch was empty. There was nothing left.
There is nothing left.
Her emotion was mixed and bound in with her puke. It was out there now. Separated from her. Her body had cleansed itself of any feeling. It had distanced itself from self-loathing. Protected itself from pity. And hatred.
Ginny had died because of her.
It’s all my fault.
She wanted to get angry again. To hit something. Hurt someone. Hurt herself, but no instructions came.
Save tears. They came. In floods.
With her head bent she instinctively turned on a tap and washed her mouth out with cool water. She spat out bile and a piece of something that she didn’t recognise.
Then, slowly and not without effort, she straightened her back.
Oh no.
Oh God, no.
The sink’s mirror had turned messenger.
Daubed on it, using Ginny’s dark red lipstick, were the words:
This is your fault. You’re next.
Sam retched again.
That hurt. Everything ached. Her side. Her finger. Her stomach. Her feet.
She was dizzy. Exposed. She needed to do something, but her brain wouldn’t talk to her. Her limbs felt they ought to move, but there was a break in the synapses somewhere.
Pathetic.
And then the sound of distant sirens penetrated her consciousness.
What?
A whisper from deep inside.
Run, Sam, run.
And that’s what she did.
St Augustine Beach, St Augustine, Florida
It had been two days. A day, a night, and then another day. He'd heard nothing from Mike Dawson. And it was getting to him. Austin had patience. Normally. But it was wearing thin. He’d spent the last day and a half pacing about the house. He’d gone shopping on his own as his wife wasn’t up to getting out; it wasn’t his favourite occupation at the best of times. He’d marched up and down the store, putting random things that they didn’t need in the trolley. And then taking them out again. He was distracted.
His wife had made it downstairs today, but only for a couple of hours. The doctor had been with more sedatives. As the doc had checked on his wife, Austin had walked up and down the hall. On his way out the doctor had stopped by him, a firm but friendly hand on his arm.
‘I can prescribe some for you, if you like?’
‘Thanks, Jim. I’m fine. Really.’
Early afternoon he’d swept the porch. As he brushed aimlessly, there had been a call. He’d run to the phone, snatching the receiver from the handle.
‘Hello. Yes. Who is it?’
It was the cops in Vegas. Nothing to report. It was just a courtesy call.
For dinner he’d cooked some potatoes and beans, and served them up with cold ham he’d bought from the store. His wife was asleep when he’d taken up her food. She was still sleeping an hour later when he’d been to pick up the empties. She’d hadn’t touched her plate.
He stood by the bedside and looked down at her. She was flat out; in the foetal position - only her head visible above the blankets.
They say that only one in ten marriages survive the death of a child - he’d read that somewhere. He guessed that statistic was more for losses when it was a young kid at home.
Maybe.
Sure, maybe.
But they would be fine. In time. He couldn’t cope day-to-day without her when Rick had been alive. He sure as hell couldn’t cope without her now he was dead.
No, they’d would be fine. He’d make it so, whatever the cost.
Back downstairs he’d busied himself with the dishes. He cleaned them well. Lots of suds. He vigorously scrubbed the plates. The blue and white pattern somehow withstood his assault.
He reached for a locker next to the refrigerator. He opened the door with one hand and held the two plates in the other. He caught himself mid-movement. His hand on the locker door was shaking. A tremor. He was so surprised by the trembling that he lost coordination with his other hand. As he brought the plates up to eye-height to put them in the cupboard, he caught the edge of the bottom plate on the rim of the locker.
Both plates spun from his grasp. He pushed his hips against the work surface to close the gap between the falling crockery and the floor. But they were moving in a different direction.
Smash!
It was a loud noise - shocking. Plate splinters were sent in all directions. A thousand pieces scattered across the red-tiled floor.
He closed his eyes and screamed, ‘Shit!’, at the top of his voice.
Then tears came. Anger. Frustration. Deep, deep immovable sorrow. It had eventually found its way out. The trembling. The scream. The tears.
Bring, bring!
‘What?’ He sniffed up the dribble from his nose. ‘What?’
He used a finger and thumb to close on the bridge of his nose, pressing hard. He scrunched up his face as if squeezing the skin together would shore up the dam against the tide of tears.
Bring, bring!
‘The phone?!’ He whispered out loud. It was both a question and an exclamation.
His eyes shot a glance at the clock in the kitchen. It had just gone a quarter after ten. Who phones at this hour?
Dawson?
He almost slipped on the broken porcelain, the rubber on the bottom of his slippers carrying sharps across the family room’s wooden floor.
Bring …
He beat the phone to the second ring.
‘Austin?’
‘Yes. Mike?’
‘Yes. Listen, Austin. Are you alone?’
Austin couldn’t stop himself from looking around the room.
‘Yes. What?’
‘I haven’t got very long. I need you to listen hard.’
Austin’s brain was all over the place. Nothing was making any sense. With his free arm he used the sleeve of his heavy cotton shirt to wipe away some of the dampness on his cheeks.
‘Uh-huh?’
‘I’ve shared Rick’s file with a senior pal of mine at the Bureau. He’s done some work and came back to me 15 minutes ago. He reckons he can keep me safe. The story he’s using is that he got the flash drive directly from you.’
No. This wasn’t registering. What was Mike talking about? Austin was listening but not hearing. But his eyes were wide now; his mouth ajar. He sniffed some more.
‘Are you listening Austin?’
‘Uh-huh.’ It was all that he could manage.
‘You need to get out of the house, Austin. Tonight. Take your good lady with you. Go somewhere. Have you got …,’ he stumbled for words, ‘... what about your sister in Tampa? I remember you telling me about her. A week, I reckon. That’s all you need. But you have to go, Austin. Both of you. Take a suitcase. Pack up your station wagon. Get in it and go. I can’t protect you. I’m sorry.’
There was silence. Austin tried to find some focus. He looked at his feet - he had no idea why. Were they planted on the ground? Was
this real?
‘Mike?’
‘Yes, Austin.’
‘Are you telling me …’
Mike didn’t let him finish.
‘Yes, Austin. Rick was most likely murdered because of the report. There are people, serious people, professional people - and I can’t say any more than that, who want that report silenced. And they know that you’ve seen a copy.’ There was a pause. ‘You have to go, Austin. Get out. Go to Tampa. Tonight. I can’t help you. Nobody can.’
Austin remained rigid as the enormity of what Mike had told him washed about his mind.
Rick was dead because of the report. His boss had been removed from post. He had seen the report? Yes. Probably.
And I’m next?
The military’s not just about marching till you drop. It doesn’t produce automatons. There were orders and soldiers followed them. But it’s much more than that. It trains its people to think, to adapt and then react. The modern battlefield was omnidirectional. The enemy invisible. Their methods of combat underhand and devious. You can’t fight and win using drills taught on the parade square. You have to use your brain. See through their eyes. Fight from the shadows. Challenge and then beat them at their own game. Play rough - strike first.
Austin was an ex-soldier. A good one. A decorated one. You can take the soldier out of the army, but you can’t … it didn’t need finishing.
As he stood by the phone table, receiver in hand, nothing was clear. Everything was opaque. A mess. Confusion. A battlefield.
But a mission was evolving through the mist of uncertainty.
He had to protect what was left of his family. His wife. Her sanity.
And then …
... he had to get to Venezuela. Go to the seat of crisis. Rick’s Reaper hadn’t been allowed to see what was going on on the ground from 30,000 feet. Someone, something, had sent it off course. That someone wanted a secret piece of real estate, deep in the Venezuelan jungle, to remain secret.
But he knew where it was. He had the report. He had the coordinates.
Rick may not have been able to get to see it from the air. But Austin was going to find it on the ground.
‘Thanks Mike, that’s really good of you.’ Lucid and calm. The training had kicked in. Doubt, anxiety and pain had disappeared. Focus and certainty had taken their place.
He placed the receiver on the handle. He hadn’t waited for a response.
Chapter 14
Flemingstraße, Munich, Germany
Frank was woken by a pinging noise from the direction of the computer screens. He fumbled for his phone. It was 4.23 am. It must be Sam.
Wearing just his pants he pushed the duvet away with his legs and scrambled off the blow-up mattress, knocking over a half-finished cup of coffee that was on the floor.
‘Shit!’ Wolfgang wouldn’t be happy. He’d told Frank last night not to leave cups on the floor. German cleanliness. It was polished concrete, heated from underfloor pipes. It would dry - and there was a cloth by the sink. He’d sort it out later.
Frank sat on the spinning chair Wolfgang had found for him from upstairs, the leather cool against his naked thighs.
Sam had reached the Consulate. The duty officer had emailed him last night. She was, according to the guy, too busy to want to talk. She’d told the officer to tell Frank she’d be in touch when she had something.
A couple of keystrokes later and he had a voice link open with Sam.
‘Hi, Sam. You wanna go video?’ Frank asked, yawning as he did.
‘No. What have you got for me?’
Abrupt. She can be like that sometimes.
‘Uh. A mixture.’ Frank made a few swipes and opened a tab titled: COTWC Phone Schematic. He shared it with Sam.
‘You got that? I’ve just sent a schematic through - it’s interactive.’
You really needed a 50-inch monitor to appreciate the detail of the work. It was like a mad-dog’s pooh - hundreds of lines and bubbles, colours and shades. Frank was pretty sure Sam would be stuck with an FCO 20-inch standard screen. She’d struggle.
Just before Wolfgang had gone to bed, they’d used the glass display-wall to get a grip of the enormity of it.
The schematic was forged by an SIS cause-and-effect matrix programme. The system used a database to link multiple effects, in their case phone numbers with a single link to another number, to causes, that is numbers with more than one link. It wasn’t designed specifically for this purpose - it was used more for actions and their outcomes when studying terrorist organisations, but the principle was the same. Frank was delighted with the work.
The schematic showed six large goose-eggs, overlaid onto an outline map of the world. In each of the six was a single telephone number and, where they had it, a name. The goose-eggs sat above: Croatia, the US, Venezuela, the UK, and two in The Bahamas. All six were connected to each other and numerous smaller goose-eggs by lines. The thicker the line, the more frequent the call. There were 15 other mid-sized goose-eggs, each with a number and, where known, a name - and they were also hovering over countries across the world. They had multiple thinner lines connecting to other numbers. Then, if Sam could be bothered to count, there were another 123 of the smallest goose-eggs, each connected to only one other number. Big goose-eggs meant a number with multiple connections; medium with a few; small with just one. It was a busy diagram.
‘The big six have multiple links - above ten?’ Sam asked. She sounded tired. Irritable.
‘Yes. Hubs, we think.’ Frank replied.
‘And the mid-sized are between two and ten links?’
‘Yes, that’s the key we chose. Although none of them, and there are 15, have more than five links. That’s why the six hubs stand out.’
‘The remainder, I’d say 120, have just a single link? They only talk to one other number?’
‘Correct.’
‘And how does this fit with Wolfgang’s structure? The one on his wall?’
‘We’ve not got there yet. Although …’
‘Have you slept?’
Sam was being particularly curt. Why?
‘Yes, well …’
‘And where’s Wolfgang?’
‘He’s asleep. Upstairs. Look, Sam, we haven’t stopped!’ Frank was losing it.
‘Get him up.’ She didn’t pause for breath. ‘I guess you’ve used the glass board to look at this? Don’t answer. Put the original country schematic up, the one with the 11 flags and the five mugshots: military, religious … you know what I mean. Then take the row that runs along the bottom - the one with Mitchell, Bell, etc; those that are not designated to a country - and move it to the top. I’m pretty confident that the diagram is the wrong way round. It needs to look like a business organisation. CEO, CFO, COO, etc; as headings. And then, in our case, the 11 country cells as subsidiaries. Do you get me so far?’
‘Yes, I think so … look. Sam. Are you OK?’
Silence. It was as though the line had been cut.
‘Sam?’
There was a further long pause.
‘Just do it, Frank.’
It took Frank a few seconds to flash up the original country structure with the mugshots. He shared it with Sam. He had the two schematics on two separate screens. If Sam were on a single screen she’d have to flip between the two.
‘Have you now got the structure in your head?’ Sam asked. Frank could just about see it.
‘I’m sort of looking at it upside down.’ Frank squinted at the screen. ‘Just about. I can’t yet see a chief … but I can see your point about middle management.’
There was a pause. Sam was thinking as she spoke.
‘No, that’s OK. That doesn’t surprise me. This is a cellular terrorist organisation. It breeds from a single mantra - it doesn’t need direction. Its followers just act on the basis of what it stands for. They kill and maim under the banner. That cuts down the need for horizontal information exchange. No operation orders; no unnecessary email traffic. And it makes breaking in
to the grouping so much more difficult. You with me?’
‘Yes, sure. But ...’ Frank stammered.
Sam wasn’t going to let him ask a supplementary.
‘This is wild-arse stuff, but I reckon the top line looks like this:’
Sam was now using the interactive facility on the bubble diagram. She scribbled over the top of the schematic. As she marked the page in Miami, Frank saw the changes on his machine in Munich.
‘Look …’ She drew.
‘Freddie is the man in the middle. He’s not in charge. There is no CEO, other than maybe their version of a superior being - God, or Jesus. But Freddie holds the thing together. He's like the company secretary. Find him and find the mantra.’ Sam underlined Freddie’s name - he was smack middle at the top of the page.
Sam continued.
‘Next is money-bags.’ Sam scribbled Lukas Müller’s name to the left of Freddie. ‘He’s Mr Finance. Chief Finance Officer.’
‘Now, Janon Jobes. He’s Mr Operations - as per the SMS he sent to snakeskin-belt man. Remember? “Need to talk about equipment.” He’s into large-scale events. Things bigger than a single-country cell. He’d be the planner for an operation like, say, 9/11 in the US, and 7/7 in the UK.’ Sam scribbled his name to the right of Freddie. ‘Have you put his name through Cynthia?’
‘Of course.’ It was four in the morning, Frank was tired and getting more and more frustrated at being on the wrong end of Sam’s monologue. He’d never experienced Sam like this. All diktat and brusqueness. ‘Nothing. He’s an unknown.’
Another pause.
‘It’s not his name. Wait … your matrix has him operating out of Venezuela with a UK mobile number?’
Frank waited for Sam to finish her thought process.
‘It’s fake. Jobes is neither a British nor a Spanish surname.' A pause. ‘Try an anagram. Or something else. He’s a high-profile player. We or the CIA will have him somewhere. Find him.’
‘OK, Sam. OK.’ He was struggling to control his frustration.
She then finished off the top line, moving two more of the large goose-eggs. Ralph Bell was there. According to Sam he probably ran a series of mopping-up agents, like the man who had chased her in Miami. As was Paul Mitchell - along with his wife. They ran the technical side; keeping The Church’s operations hidden on the Dark Web.
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