by Dc Alden
As his lungs inflated for the last time he saved his final breath for one more curse. As it left his lips he prayed it would carry on the wind, would travel over land and sea, would find his brother-in-law Amir and ruin his life as surely as his own.
Roy cracked open a cautious eye.
The room was in semi-darkness, the glow of the estate washing over his naked walls. Night had fallen. He wasn’t dead. The blow he’d been expecting, the one that would crush his skull, hadn’t come. He was alive, and right now that was the best he could hope for.
Slowly, very slowly, he dragged himself upright, resting his back against the slashed sofa. His head swam and his eyes lost focus. He inspected the back of his skull with careful fingers. There was a small lump there, but the skin was unbroken. He held up his lacerated hands, the dried blood black against his skin. He reached for the St Christopher around his neck. Still there, thank God.
He got to his feet, holding the wall to steady himself. He made it to the kitchen and found the first aid box. He washed four aspirin down with a glass of water and gripped the counter until his head cleared.
He staggered along the hallway. The door to Derek’s room lay open, everything beyond wrecked. A foul stench told him that the Scot had emptied his bowels somewhere inside. He slapped the light off and closed the door, too exhausted to do anything about it. In the grand scheme of things it was a small price to pay. Derek was gone, and Roy doubted he’d be back.
He bolted the front door and headed for the bathroom. He inspected the damage to his face; a split lip swollen like a raw sausage, a black eye, numerous cuts, scrapes and swellings. He dabbed his wounds with cotton wool and antiseptic and retired to his own room. Derek had trashed that too but thankfully the Scot’s bladder and bowels must’ve been empty. His mattress was intact and Roy lay down in his clothes, wrapping himself in his shredded quilt. Feathers drifted on the air. Relief consumed him. Despite everything, Roy felt safe inside his own home for the first time in weeks.
He lay in the darkness, skull thumping. Today was proving to be one of the worst of his life, ranking right up there with the crash that killed his parents, the news that Jimmy was missing, the day that Vicky had walked out on him. How Sammy would react to Derek’s departure was anyone’s guess, but Roy had the feeling that he wouldn’t be entirely exonerated of blame.
He turned over, curling into a ball and dragging the quilt over his head. His hand brushed against his jeans and he felt it again, the USB drive inside his pocket. It meant nothing to him now. His problems were more immediate and they wouldn’t be ignored. He buried himself a little deeper, wishing he could hibernate, and wake again in six months’ time when the world had moved on and taken his troubles with it.
But he knew that wasn’t possible.
He knew that with the coming of dawn the whole, terrible merry-go-round would begin again.
Chapter Seventeen
‘A murder investigation was launched today after the body of forty-seven-year-old Yasin Goreja was discovered behind a row of shops in Hounslow, west London—’
Roy’s toothbrush froze in mid-air. He winced as toothpaste leaked into his split lip. He spat a pink swirl down the plug.
‘—family have since been notified. Mister Goreja’s body was discovered by a passer-by at eight-thirty yesterday evening, and police have yet to confirm or deny reports that Goreja had been assaulted. A postmortem will be carried out in an attempt to establish the cause of death. In other news a—’
He snapped off the radio and stared at his reflection, his battered face drained of colour. Sammy had killed Yasin, or had had him killed. And it was Roy’s fault. He leaned on the sink to stop his hands from shaking; blackmail notwithstanding, Yasin didn’t deserve this.
Jesus Christ, his phone! Would the cops have it? His stomach churned. He thought about running, like Frank told him to, but with Yasin dead, that would make him a prime suspect. No, he had to stay calm, think. Tough it out.
He checked his Blackberry for messages. Nothing. Derek was probably with Sammy right now, stoking his dangerous mood. Roy was in a world of shit. He touched the purple puffiness around his eye and winced. At least he had physical evidence of Derek’s lunacy. Maybe he should take photos of the flat too.
His body ached as he dressed. He found the USB drive and Frank’s number in his pocket and pinned them to the corkboard on the kitchen wall, along with Jimmy’s report. Right now he had bigger problems—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The front door shook with a force that echoed through the flat. Roy’s heart leapt into his mouth. It had to be the police. He peered through the blind—no uniforms, just the angry whip of a dark ponytail.
Vicky.
He threw the bolt, swung the front door open.
‘Jesus Christ, you nearly gave me—’
‘Where is he?’ she yelled, barging past him.
Roy slammed the door. He trailed after her as she checked the kitchen, about-faced into the hallway, then marched into the living room. Like Roy, she also stopped dead in her tracks. Then she spun on her heel, pushing him out of the way.
‘Max!’ she yelled, heading towards the spare room. She flung the door open, gagging as the smell hit her. She slammed the door shut, marched into Roy’s room. More damage. He could see the emotions raging behind her large brown eyes, anger, fear, and now confusion. She closed them, took a deep breath and regarded Roy for the first time.
‘I’m only going to ask you once. Where is he?’
‘You mean Max?’
He flinched as Vicky took a step towards him. ‘Don’t play games. You’ve got five seconds to tell me where he is or I’m calling the police.’ She fumbled in her handbag, brandished her phone in Roy’s face. ‘Four seconds—’
‘Vicky, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Three—’
‘I mean it. He’s not here. I haven’t seen him since yesterday, I swear to God.’
Vicky stared at him, searching for lies. ‘The Head called me. She said a woman from social services had taken Max away, just after I dropped him off. She had paperwork, a court order—’
‘A what?’
‘I know you want to hurt me, Roy, but this isn’t about us. It’s Max’s life you’re playing with.’
Roy reached out and held her arms. ‘Look at me, Vicky. I didn’t do this. I’ve just got out of bed for Christ’s sake. Now tell me, was this woman alone?’
Suddenly there was doubt in her face. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘The Head said she was mixed-race, thirties.’
Roy’s hand covered his mouth. Tank. ‘Oh shit—’
‘What is it? Tell me, for God’s sake!’
‘I know where Max is.’
‘Where? Tell me!’
‘Sammy’s got him. Sammy French. He was at the school that day, when I was late for Max’s football match.’
‘Sammy French, that’s his name?’ She dialled a number and held the phone to her ear.
‘Who are you calling?’
‘Who d’you think? The police, of course.’
Roy slapped the phone from her hand. He scooped it off the carpet and ended the call.
‘What the hell are you doing? That man has our son.’
‘You can’t call the police.’
‘Don’t be stupid! Max has been kidnapped!’
‘Keep your bloody voice down!’ He flicked the hallway light on. ‘Look at my face, Vicky. Look at the state of the flat. They’ve taken Max for a reason.’ He bit his swollen lip. ‘You can’t call anyone. It’s down to me to sort it out.’
‘You?’ Vicky slammed him against the wall surprising force. ‘What have you done, for God’s sake?’
‘Nothing. For once in my life I’ve done nothing.’
Vicky looked past him, into the shattered living room. ‘What happened here?’
‘A lunatic happened. The woman who took Max, she works for Sammy.
He’ll be fine. They won’t touch him.’
‘Why are they doing this?’
‘Look, let me make a coffee and—’
‘I don’t want a bloody coffee! Get this Sammy person on the phone, Roy. Explain to him that Max isn’t like other little boys. Tell him Max is special. That he needs his mummy…’
Her face crumpled and she buried herself into Roy’s chest. He hesitated, then he held her close, her tears damp on his T-shirt, her arms wrapped about his waist. Roy closed his eyes, captivated by the familiar scent of her skin, her hair, the warmth of her embrace. Right then he missed her so much his chest ached. Then he thought about Max and his mood turned dark.
‘We’ll get him back, Vicks. I promise. It’s leverage, that’s all.’
She looked at Roy with bloodshot eyes, fat tears rolling across the delicate rise of her cheeks. ‘Why is he doing this?’
‘Come with me.’
He took her hand and led her into the kitchen. He sat her down at the kitchen table, where Vicky had once decided they would eat their meals, where Roy had sulked because he couldn’t watch TV with his food on a tray. Vicky had won that battle. Vicky always won.
He boiled the kettle, poured two mugs, and placed one in front of her.
‘I told you, I don’t want coffee,’ she sniffed.
Roy didn’t argue. He settled in the chair opposite, sipped his brew.
‘That day at the school, that was the day all this started. I hadn’t seen Sammy for years but he came looking for me…’
Roy told her everything—well, almost everything. He left poor Yasin out of it. That would only make things worse. By the time he was finished twenty minutes had passed. Vicky grilled him for another ten. It was then she asked about Frank.
‘No, Frank’s got nothing to do with it. He came to tell me about Jimmy. About his death.’
‘What?’
‘I was right, Vicks. Jimmy didn’t go missing in Baghdad. Look.’ He showed her the St Christopher around his neck. ‘He was killed down on the Iraqi coast. It was all covered up. Frank said he was working at some secret place out in the desert but I’m not—’
‘Roy, wait.’ She reached out, laid gentle fingers on his hand. ‘I’m sorry about Jimmy, but we have to focus on Max. That’s our immediate priority, okay?’
‘Yeah, of course.’
‘So, what do we do now?’
‘You should go back to work—’ He caught the look on her face. ‘Okay, home then. I’ll go see Sammy, pick Max up. He’ll be home by teatime, I promise.’ Roy nearly gagged on his own lie but he had to buy some time, just in case things got messy. Across the table Vicky closed her eyes and took a very deep breath.
‘Okay, Roy. We’ll play it your way for now, but if Max isn’t home by six I’m calling the police. Tell your friend this isn’t Brazil or Colombia; we don’t snatch children off the streets here. And let him know I’m a journalist. I won’t be intimidated.’
Her blood was up, the fury of a lioness deprived of her cub. But Sammy was the man with the rifle, the big game hunter.
‘I’ll tell him. And don’t say anything to anyone until you speak to me. Not even Nate.’
‘Christ, if he found out—’ She twisted the straps of her handbag, the blood draining from her knuckles. This time it was Roy who reached out.
‘Hey, we’ll get Max back. I promise.’
He could see she wanted to believe him but the doubt lingered. She got to her feet.
‘I’m going home. Call me the second you have news.’
Roy watched her from the balcony until she’d disappeared off the estate. There was no way Vicky would last until six. And when normality returned, he doubted she’d ever let him alone with Max again. It wouldn’t matter anyway. After this, America would be the best place for all of them.
He grabbed a coat and slammed the front door behind him. For the first time in Roy’s life he had absolutely no idea what the next few hours, or days, or weeks, had in store for him. He was scared, not for himself, but for his son, and for Vicky too. He’d been a poor husband, a distant father. This time things would be different.
This time he wouldn’t let them down.
‘Focus, Keyes, focus.’
Josh heard the snapping of Beeton’s fingers, his gravelly voice filling the soundproofed war room.
‘I’m sorry, please continue,’ he mumbled.
He was seated alone at the conference table, a deer caught in a truck’s headlights as Beeton’s angry scowl filled half the wall-mounted TV screen. The other half was taken up by the icy visage of Lund, a high-definition tag-team ragging on Josh’s ass. There were others there too, shadows in the background, a sense of intense activity humming down the dark fibre from Denver. The Transition was drawing closer. Then he saw Beeton’s eyes narrow, his thick black eyebrows knitting together.
‘This situation is completely unacceptable, Keyes. You’ve had every resource made available to you and yet Marshall is still on the loose. Not only that, now he has this.’ He shook a sheaf of papers in a large fist.
Josh studied his own copy of the technical incident summary spread out across the table in front of him. It had been spat out of the room’s big laser printer just a moment ago. The pages were still warm, smooth beneath his fingertips. Most of it didn’t make much sense but what it symbolised was the ass-fucking Frank had given him. His forced his mind to focus, his finger tracing the text on the page.
‘Okay, so he used Cohen’s account to get in. His PC was probably unlocked when Marshall killed him.’
‘The technicians have confirmed this,’ Lund said. ‘Professor Cohen’s email account was backed up and copied to an external drive. Those emails go back almost two years. In addition he copied the professor’s data store, over forty gigabytes of the most sensitive data, much of it referring to the Messina program. Committee members have been directly referenced. Do you comprehend the severity of the situation, Mister Keyes?’
Even over a scrambled line and nearly five thousand miles away, Lund’s voice was like an ice-cold shower. Her thin face was expressionless, her body clothed in her customary uniform of tailored black suit and white buttoned-to-the-collar shirt. Auschwitz chic, Josh decided. Next to her, Beeton’s fist thumped down onto the table.
‘That son-of-a-bitch now has proof of Messina. He’s got names, dates, locations, every goddam thing.’
Josh wanted to fire back, to vent his own frustration. He wasn’t a cop, or an investigator. This assignment should never have been given to him. He thought Beeton and Lund might be getting some heat too, but not the kind that would see them demoted to a burial detail in Queens, or watchtower guard at a FEMA camp. That would be Josh’s fate, if this thing didn’t get resolved. His eyes roamed the tech report, the jargon about port interaction and processor spiking, about key drives and network packets. Cohen’s computer was a melted heap of junk when he’d seen it. The fact that Frank might’ve hacked it and stolen data didn’t register with him or Villiers. They were hunters, and their quarry was in flight; they didn’t have time to sift through the charred remains of Cohen’s office. Someone had thought about it though, probably Doctor Wyman. An IT forensic team had been alerted, a myriad of systems analysed, the final report spread across the table in front of him. Josh cursed the security team at Copse Hill. Frank had breezed in, killed Cohen, stolen data, and escaped right under their noses. Fucking amateurs. He hoped Webber was still alive when they’d thrown him into the incinerator. Beeton’s voice interrupted his murderous vision.
‘Keyes,’ he barked, ‘are you listening?’
‘Sorry, the feed broke up there for a moment.’
‘Well make sure you hear this. The Committee is deeply troubled by the incident over there. A decision has been made. An investigation team will fly to London in the next couple of days. You’ll remain in London with your team and hand over to the senior investigator on arrival. You’ll take your orders from him and provide muscle until this business with Marshall
is finished. Is that understood?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. In the meantime, keep looking.’
‘What about the data?’
‘That is not your concern, Mister Keyes. Your only function now is to assist others. That is all.’
The screen went blank.
Josh felt a ball of cold fear forming in his gut. An investigation team, probably made up of former federal agents. They would do the job right. They would hunt Frank down in that methodical cop way, find him, deliver him alive. Then Frank would be squeezed for every scrap of his story. If that happened, it was game over for Josh. He had a mental image of uber-efficient FBI types packing their gear, hurrying en masse towards a waiting aircraft. The clock was ticking. Josh was running out of time.
He left the war room. In the basement kitchenette he made himself a coffee. He wasn’t that hungry—the videoconference with Beeton and Lund had robbed him of his appetite—but he considered eating something to keep his energy levels up. He opened the refrigerator, looked inside. The trays were filled with fresh food but none of it appealed. He swung the door closed. Ears stood in the doorway.
‘What’s the word from Denver?’
‘Standard brief,’ Josh lied. There was no point in undermining his own authority just yet. Not while there was still a chance. ‘Anything on the wires?’
‘Nothing that interests us.’
Josh felt like punching the walls. Or Ears. Anyone would do. He had forty-eight hours, seventy-two tops, before the G-Men got here. Then it was over.
Ears remained in the doorway, watching him.
‘Don’t let me keep you. We still got a target to find.’
The former Marine stood his ground. ‘I wanted to bring something to your attention.’
For the first time Josh noticed he had a sheaf of papers in his hand. ‘What is it?’
‘A while back you ordered a thorough evaluation of the Richmond area; sensitive installations, key personnel, all within a ten mile radius.’