by Dc Alden
He lowered Cohen to the floor and hurried across the room. He swiped Cohen’s computer mouse, keeping the screen active. He snapped on the desk lamp and inspected the indentation of Cohen’s hastily written note—
Ask Alan to run background on our guest.
No time to lose.
He fished in his pocket for the USB key drive and plugged it into Cohen’s computer. The professor’s security access was up in the Gods. Frank’s fingers danced across the keyboard. He trawled Cohen’s data share, copying the vast, well-organised file structure in its entirety. Then he backed up the professor’s secure mailbox, every email, every electronic conversation, every official communication going back over eighteen months. Frank watched the progress bar crawling towards its completion; there would be names, dates, times, locations, shipments, manifests, meetings, orders, instructions, plans, doubts, fears, accomplishments, developments, triumphs, goals and dreams. Everything. Gigabytes of decrypted data filled the key drive.
Beep.
Copy complete.
Frank’s heart raced. He put the key drive in his pocket. He snapped Cohen’s ID lanyard from around his bruised neck. He dragged the body across the room and onto a sofa against the wall. He shaped Cohen into a foetal position, dressed a blanket over him, took off the well-polished shoes and arranged them neatly on the floor.
He tugged his overcoat on.
Cohen’s phone warbled.
Frank waited, frozen. The ringing stopped. Something caught his eye among the clutter of Cohen’s desk, a white card with gold piping around its edge. He shook it free, saw the embossed pyramid, the numeric strings below, the date and grid reference. An invitation, like the one he’d been given all those years ago. Holy shit. He shoved it in his pocket.
He scanned the room.
He saw the fireplace, the unlit gas fire, the small brass pipe. He opened the valve, heard the hiss of escaping gas. He lit a couple of Cohen’s Marlboros and left them burning in the ashtray. It was crude, but what the hell.
Time to exfil.
He moved towards the door, talking loudly.
‘Well, thanks again, Jon—’ he pulled open the door ‘—a real pleasure. Yes. I’ll tell her. Goodbye.’
He closed the door.
Dana saw him, unplugged her earphones.
‘The professor has requested not to be disturbed for thirty minutes.’
‘Very well.’
He smiled, said goodbye and headed out into the hallway. He fought the urge to run down the stairs. As he reached the entrance lobby he heard laughter from the security office. Wyman was sitting in a chair, a mug in her hand, sharing a joke with a man in a dark, military-style jumper. He had a phone clamped to his ear.
He was on hold to someone.
Someone who was checking Frank Marshall for red flags.
Frank swiped Cohen’s card.
The door hummed and clicked. Wyman’s head turned in his direction. The smile slipped from her face. She said something to Webber.
Frank hit the button release in the lobby. He flinched as an alarm klaxon echoed around the building. Then he ran.
The eight-year old Mercedes estate was twenty feet away, unlocked, the key in the ignition. Frank fired the engine into life. In the rear view mirror a couple of guards spilled out of the main door, Webber and Wyman trailing in their wake. Frank dropped the car into drive and roared away as the guards fired several pistol rounds. Two heavy thumps hit the bodywork and then he was screeching around a bend in the woods. Ahead loomed the main gate. He floored the accelerator and ducked as he smashed through the barrier in a shower of sparks and a screech of twisted metal. More shots echoed around the woods. He fish-tailed around another bend.
In his rear view mirror, nothing but trees.
He kept his foot down.
‘What’s your emergency?’
‘I heard shots fired, people shouting.’ Frank panted in his best English accent. He blurted out the address of the Copse Hill facility. ‘I think someone’s been killed—’
He replaced the receiver, moved through the lobby and left the hotel. He walked towards Andover town centre a half mile away. He found a taxi rank and hopped one to Basingstoke station, where he boarded a fast train to Clapham Junction in southwest London. When he arrived he avoided the cab rank outside, conscious of the CCTV cameras. He walked for ten minutes then hailed a passing one.
He stretched out in back as the cab headed south. It had been a long, stressful day and his hostel bed called, a cheap establishment on the edge of Kingston town with an anonymous and transient population of mainly eastern Europeans. He knew the hunt would be focussed out west now, the Mercedes found and traced, his movements caught on CCTV, but right now whoever was leading the chase would have more questions than answers. Frank hoped it would stay that way, for the next twenty-four hours at least. After that, all bets were off.
Cohen’s death would send a ripple of panic through The Committee. He imagined the frantic phone calls, the angry voices. They would feel vulnerable, and Frank smiled at the thought. The Transition couldn’t be stopped, he knew that; in fact, his actions today would probably bring the timetable forward, but at least the world would know how it started. And who started it.
He reached into his pocket, for the stiff white invitation card with gold piping. Frank smiled. He decided he would head east, target the evildoers where they least expected him to be. Once upon a time Frank excelled at chaos.
It was time to get reacquainted with it.
He ordered the driver to pull over near Richmond Bridge. He waited for him to drive away before crossing the road and heading towards the river. He found the unlit towpath that twisted along the banks of the Thames and followed it south, towards Kingston.
The path was empty, the river still, silent.
Moments later Frank was swallowed by the darkness.
Chapter Twelve
‘Where is he?’
‘They.’
‘What?’ The police inspector had to shout above the roar of aircraft engines.
‘They. There’re four of them. One’s dead. Hypothermia, probably.’
‘Dead?’ The inspector snarled. ‘Jesus Christ, my bloody paperwork just tripled.’
Roy stood beneath the nose of an Emirates Boeing 777 watching the exchange. He was wrapped in a high-visibility yellow parka, his hands shoved into his pockets, and he stamped his feet in defiance of a bitter wind that barrelled across the flat expanse of Heathrow. He smiled as he watched the fat cop’s face redden with anger. Next to the cop, Senior Immigration Officer Piper offered a sympathetic shrug.
The flight had recently arrived from Jordan. Cargo handlers had made the grim discovery, the refugees huddled together in a dark corner of the hold, staring wild-eyed at the world beyond the gaping hold door. Someone said they were Pakistani, which was why Yasin was here. Roy had tagged along for the experience. Seeing the refugees first hand, he was amazed they’d survived the journey at all.
Now both he and Yasin were relegated to bystanders, loitering beneath the Boeing while Piper and the police inspector shouted above the noise of taxiing aircraft. The inspector was a real miserable bastard. Roy heard him shouting about poor security, a hand clamped on top of his service cap that the gusting wind threatened to snatch away. He noticed Piper had no such concerns, his long, thinning comb-over dancing on top of his sparse dome like the flames of a fire. That made Roy smile.
A hydraulic flatbed was raised and the stowaways unloaded, destination a miserable, bulging detention centre somewhere around the country. Still, it was probably better than where they’d just come from.
The show finally over, everybody headed for the terminal building. Roy lingered, watching Yasin stride away, deep in conversation with Piper. Ground crew busied themselves around the aircraft, hoisting, unloading, coupling and decoupling. Lights flashed and warning beepers battled against the wind and the roar of aircraft. Yasin and the others had disappeared inside.
Time to go.
He strode back to the terminal, swiping into the airside access corridor. He kept moving, conscious of the all-seeing black orbs that tracked his progress. Not too fast, not too slow, the iPhone poking from his coat pocket recording everything. His heart thumped inside his chest.
He stowed his airside gear in the locker room and headed for the staff canteen. Roy made himself a coffee and sat down away from the handful of people enjoying a break. He checked the footage he’d just taken. It was the last time he’d take such a risk, because he was pretty sure he’d found a way to get Derek through to Departures.
Sammy had been right, the architectural drawings had helped to keep Derek focused. The Scot had snatched at the tube when Roy brought it home. He’d spread the drawings across the kitchen table, his finger tracing the entrances and exits, the stairways and concourses, like a general surveying his battle maps. Later Roy had pinned the drawings to the living room wall, adding photographs to it so Derek could visualise the corridors, the swipe readers, the signs and uniforms. It was all coming together.
But the weak link was Derek himself.
The man was getting more impatient, more volatile, with each passing day. He’d become fixated on Dwayne, watching him through the kitchen blinds, muttering under his whisky-laced breath. The pressure was building. Roy wanted him gone, before something erupted.
He pulled out his phone. Time to update Sammy—
‘Who are you calling?’
Roy’s head snapped round. Yasin stood over him, a radio in his hand.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You’re calling your criminal friends?’
Yasin’s thick eyebrows were knotted together, his bearded face dark with thunderous outrage. He wagged an accusing finger in Roy’s face. ‘Why did you not return to the terminal as ordered?’
Roy swallowed hard, his face burning with guilt. He struggled to find a satisfactory answer.
‘I was looking for an old mate out on the ramp.’
‘Liar. Come with me.’
Roy followed Yasin towards the glass wall at the far side of the canteen. Criminal friends? How could he possibly know? Next stop the duty manager’s office, and from there it would all fall apart. Roy was ready to bolt from the room. Beyond the glass, aircraft whined and rumbled along taxiways. They were out of earshot from the rest of the canteen. Yasin held out his hand.
‘Give me your phone.’
Roy gripped the device a little tighter. ‘No. Why?’
‘I know what’s on it. Give it to me. Or do you want to do this upstairs?’
‘That’s my personal property.’
Yasin smiled. ‘Okay, then perhaps you can explain to Mister Piper why you’re taking pictures of airside areas, hmm? Are you a terrorist? Are you part of a cell?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Roy blurted, ‘I’m not even a mus—’ He stopped short.
‘A Muslim? You’re racist too?’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Give me that phone.’
Roy tried to calm his voice. ‘Okay, I took a little footage. For personal interest.’
‘You like corridors? And security gates?’ Yasin took a step closer. ‘I’ve been watching you for many days, Mister Sullivan. You are a liar and a criminal. Give me your phone, now. Last chance.’
Roy’s heart pounded in his chest. Why didn’t he wipe the files once he’d saved them to his computer? You stupid, stupid, idiot!
‘I can’t, I—’
Yasin snatched the phone from his hand. He scrolled through Roy’s camera roll. It was stuffed to the gills with images and video, all covert, all deeply incriminating. Yasin tutted several times then waved it in Roy’s face. ‘The police call this hostile reconnaissance. It is my duty to report it.’
The fight left Roy. His legs felt hollow. This was all going to end very badly. He looked beyond Yasin to the apron below, saw a group of yellow-jacketed ground crew clustered around a low-loader, chatting, laughing. Roy cursed the day he’d decided to leave that world behind. Back then Jimmy was a phone call away, the emotional iceberg that was Vicky Hamilton still far over the horizon. Life had been good.
How did it all come to this?
‘Do what you’ve got to do,’ he told Yasin.
He should run, warn Sammy, get Derek out of the flat, but Roy simply didn’t have the energy. It was all over. What was it Jimmy used to say? Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Yeah, well the worst had arrived. He was finished.
Then Yasin did something unexpected. He slipped the phone into his pocket.
‘I’m going to keep this for a while, give you the opportunity to reflect on your deeds.’
Roy frowned. Why wasn’t he being marched off to Piper’s office? Yasin took a step closer, his eyes roaming the canteen.
‘These crimes, these accusations, I can make them go away.’
Roy pulled a face. ‘What?’
‘You help me, I help you. Then we move on.’ He wiped his hands together, like a street trader making a deal.
‘What sort of help?’
‘I want twenty-five thousand pounds, in cash. This is what it will cost to get your phone back. For all this to go away.’
Roy’s jaw nearly dropped open. ‘Say that again?’
‘You heard me,’ Yasin hissed. ‘Twenty-five thousand. For this you don’t go to jail.’
Roy’s shoulder slumped. His boss was a crook, just like Sammy. His relief was palpable. He hung his head and let out a long, slow breath.
Yasin mistook it for something else. ‘Good, we have an understanding. You pay ten thousand first, the other fifteen by the end of next month. Plenty of time to get the money together.’
Roy shook his head. ‘Listen, Yas, you don’t want to do this, trust me. Whatever it is you think I’m doing, you’re mistaken. Those pictures, they mean nothing.’
‘So you admit to taking them? Okay, we’ll talk to Mister Piper, let him sort this problem out.’
This time it was Roy who stepped in closer. ‘Wait, Yas—’
‘Mister Goreja.’
‘Whatever. Look, take my advice, just give me the phone back and drop the whole thing. I won’t say anything if you don’t, okay? Let’s put it down to a bad day at the office and move on.’
Yasin shook his head. ‘Not okay. The deal is twenty-five thousand. Or we take a walk upstairs. Yes, we may both be suspended, maybe our houses searched. I have no problem with this. Mister Goreja is an honest man, they will see. But what about Roy Sullivan? What secrets will they discover at his home?’
Roy had a sudden mental image of the police piling through his front door, discovering an escaped prisoner sprawled on his couch, the drawings pinned to the wall.
‘It’s not just about me,’ Roy warned. ‘There’re other people involved, heavy people. The kind you don’t mess with.’
Yasin laughed. ‘You try to scare me? Where I come from, Taliban make the law. Not the army, not Islamabad, Taliban. And when they come to my village even the goats shit themselves.’
‘I’m not fucking around, Yas. These are serious—’
‘Twenty-five thousand, then you can have your phone back.’
He spun on his heel and marched away, whistling as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Roy called after him. ‘I’ll need a few days off. I need to get a new phone, make some calls.’
The older man stopped, considered the request. ‘Send me a leave form.’
‘Bullshit. Cover for me.’
Roy headed for the locker room. He was in deep now, the stakes piled high, the consequences hanging over his head like the blade of a guillotine. Roy could’ve called his bluff, but it was Yasin they’d believe, and the whole thing would quickly fall apart. He had to let his supervisor think he was getting his money, and that meant talking to Sammy.
An hour later Roy was tapping on the glass door of a cafe on the Upper Richmond Road. Tank unlocked the door and waved Roy over to a booth. Sammy was
sat next to a suited Indian man, one hand leafing through a stack of spreadsheets, the other tapping away at a large calculator, a pair of black designer glasses perched on the end of his nose. He didn’t look up as Roy hovered by the table.
‘So, what’s the big emergency?’ Sammy said, scrutinising some sort of financial printout.
‘It’s about the lodger.’
He gave Roy a look then tapped the Asian on the forearm. ‘Take a break, Jay. Go out back, get Paulo to knock you up some pasta.’ The accountant vacated the table and Roy slipped into the booth.
‘I’m busy, so make it quick.’
‘It’s about the airport,’ Roy began. ‘There’s been a complication.’
Sammy took his glasses off. ‘Speak.’
So Roy did.
When he’d finished, Sammy said, ‘Twenty-five grand, that’s it?’
Roy nodded.
‘And it won’t affect the thing with our friend?’
‘Not if we move quickly.’
‘Tell me about the plan.’
Roy took a breath. ‘Okay, I’ve gone over it again and again. The hard part is getting Derek airside, and for that I need a uniform and an airside pass. Now, there’s an older guy, Colin, a work colleague. He’s got IBS.’
‘What?’
‘Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Every day Colin takes his break in Costa Coffee, on the landside. He likes to watch the crowds. He always takes his ID off and puts it in his coat pocket over the back of his chair. Then he normally uses the toilet. Sometimes he’s gone for a couple of minutes, sometimes ten. If I’m with him he’ll ask me to watch his stuff. The day you give the green light, I’ll go for the usual coffee, distract him, and then put liquid laxative in his brew. Bingo. He’ll be on the throne for ages, during which time I’ll borrow his coat and swipe card.’
Sammy chewed the arm of his glasses, staring at Roy for several moments. ‘So, let me get this straight—your well thought-out plan depends on some old geezer taking a shit, is that right? You’re not inspiring me with much confidence, Roy.’