by Chris Thomas
‘Get her out of here!’ the doctor shouted to the accompanying security guard. He pulled Saeed to his feet and helped him down onto the chair as the guard dragged Amanda, kicking and screaming, down the hallway. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes, thank you, Doctor. It’s fine, I’m used to it. She gets like that after she’s been drinking,’ he said, wiggling his jaw from side to side with his hand.
‘Is that true what she said about the bottle?’ the doctor asked.
Saeed hung his head like a naughty schoolboy. ‘Yes I’m afraid it is, Doctor. We were having an argument. She was drinking straight out of the bottle and waving it around. I was trying to calm her down and the bottle slipped from her hand. Sorry I wasn’t straight before, but we’re trying to work through it, her issues I mean. Where is she now?’
‘Security have her, but I will have to get the police involved. They’ll take her to the station and she’ll probably get away with a caution, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Social Services want a chat. I’m sorry, but I have a duty of care to these boys.’
‘I understand,’ he replied. ‘Can I take the boys home now? I think Mo could do with going to bed. I promise you I’ll take care of them and, in the morning, we’ll get this little matey a massive present. What do you say, champ? How about I buy you that Transformer you wanted?’
‘Yes, I suggest that you do,’ said the doctor, as Mo’s headache seemed to miraculously disappear. ‘Then can I suggest that after you sort your wife out down at the station you make sure that she gets some serious professional help.’
‘I will, Doctor,’ replied Saeed. ‘I’ll make sure she gets everything that she needs.’
THE DOORBELL RANG and Saeed pressed mute on the television remote control. He opened the door to find a female police constable holding Amanda by the arm.
‘Good evening, Mister Anwar. Thank you for your assistance earlier on,’ said the policewoman.
‘My pleasure,’ he replied, taking hold of Amanda and leading her into the hallway. ‘I’m only sorry I couldn’t come down to the station. We’ve got two small children. One’s just been to hospital and I had no-one to look after them.’
‘That’s fine. I explained to your wife that you had chosen not to press charges and we appreciate that this has been a difficult day for all concerned. She’s lucky to have such a supportive husband as you, Mister Anwar. I hope you give her all the help that she needs.’
‘Oh, I most certainly will,’ replied Saeed.
‘Well, goodnight, sir.’
‘Goodnight, Officer.’
As the officer left, Saeed looked up and down the front of the house before slamming the door behind him.
30
The day had arrived. Joe sat at his desk, staring out into the warehouse as the last of his staff packed up their belongings and left for the weekend. They always packed up at two o’clock on a Friday, and most could be found in the pub barely ten minutes later. Usually, he was glad beyond belief that he was sat on his side of the desk, sheltered from the mundane, low-paid monotony of their largely insignificant jobs. Whilst his job had its crap side to it, at least he could decide how much he paid himself. But at this precise moment in time, he coveted their blissful ignorance and would have given his right arm to switch places. And as his thoughts dwelt more on the events about to unfold, losing his right arm seemed like one of many potential outcomes.
He watched through the window as the final convoy of cars drove away, leaving him alone in his warehouse. He could just lock up, drive home as quickly as possible, grab Ellie and their passports, and disappear out of the country. The company could run itself for a few days whilst the dust settled. His daydreaming began, and he searched for ‘cheap flights to Spain’. Two tickets from Heathrow to Malaga only £186.00 return, but he would have to leave now. He grabbed his wallet and keys, shut down the computer, and stood up from his desk to leave the office.
But it was too late. Around the corner came a curtain-sided Britten Rashford delivery lorry, which disappeared around the back, to the yard. Joe sat back down and restarted his computer. As the two men walked in through the far entrance of the warehouse, the least he could do was to appear slightly nonchalant about what was about to happen. His feigned relaxation certainly wasn’t apparent on the inside, especially when he saw that the two men were not the same ones he had been in contact with up until now.
‘Good afternoon, Mister Henderson,’ said Stan, as he walked into the office, accompanied by Eric. ‘I’m Dave and this is my colleague, Alan.’
Joe stood up and held out a hand, which was roundly ignored by both men, who began walking around the office, taking in every little detail and propping open the door to the server and communications room. Cue a failed attempt to make small talk.
‘You two look a lot alike. You could almost be twins,’ he joked, nervously.
‘Almost,’ replied Stan.
‘I was expecting to see Mister Ziff and Mister White. Will they be here later?’ asked Joe.
‘No they won’t,’ said Eric, abruptly.
‘OK, well is there anything I can do to help? Can I get you anything? Cup of tea perhaps?’ Joe asked, thinking he should maybe sound like a gracious host even if he didn’t feel like one.
‘No,’ replied Stan, equally abruptly, jabbing a finger into Joe’s shoulder. ‘In fact, the less you do, the better. Leave this to us, don’t touch anything, and you shouldn’t fuck it up. Again. That way we all leave here on time tonight, OK?’
‘Yes sir,’ said Joe, rubbing his shoulder.
Another lorry swung around the corner and pulled up outside the shut doors. Out stepped two large men, carrying various covers, plastic sheeting, and tools. Joe was sure he recognised them from the last ‘episode’, although at no point had he ever seen their faces. He went out into the warehouse, and as the men walked towards the large expanse that had been selected for the stage, he managed a half-wave, half-bow, and greeted them.
‘Hi, I’m Joe,’ he said, but the men just walked straight past as if he wasn’t there. ‘Good choice.’
A goon turned around and looked at him with some sort of primeval death stare.
‘Er, I mean, er …’ Joe stuttered, ‘setting up all your equipment in that part of the warehouse. Well hidden from, well, anything.’
‘It’s close to the tools. Especially the saws,’ came the Eastern European drawl, which was the most the goon could muster.
‘The saws, yes of course, how silly of me.’ By now Joe just wanted it to be eight o’clock. Get this thing over and done with. At least these people had it in their own interests to clear up and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Joe walked back into the office, where ‘Alan’ was busy in the comms room. He had a laptop wired into the CCTV system and was busy typing in endless reams of indecipherable code.
‘Will you be shutting the system down? I know my father checks in every now and again from home. Just to make sure that everything’s OK. Not entirely sure what he would do if he looked on his computer at home and saw a man dressed as a clown slitting some bloke’s throat in his warehouse,’ said Joe, half-jokingly.
‘No, we’re not shutting it down,’ replied Eric, unamused. ‘We’ve patched together some old footage of the warehouse where nothing happens. Once I’ve reprogrammed the time and date stamp on the footage we’ll play it during the broadcast. That way, not only will your father not realise anything is taking place in his warehouse, but if, and I mean if, the police ever have reason to check, they’ll find that nothing happened either.’
‘Great, I think I saw that once in a …’ started Joe, before thinking better of it. ‘Never mind.’ He walked over to the window, just as a shiny black executive saloon car pulled up into one of the parking spaces out by the front entrance. ‘Holy fucking shit!’
‘What is it?’ asked Stan.
‘It’s my fucking dad,’ he replied.
‘WE’RE IN,’ said Fowler. ‘But this is my own bi
tcoin account, I’m going to want reimbursing.’
‘Fine,’ replied Harris. ‘Just submit an expenses form. Why have you got your own bitcoin account anyway?’
‘I trade them. I can make more money in a week dealing in these than in a couple of months at the pitiful rate of pay in this place.’
Harris raised his eyes in surprise, mainly because he couldn’t really argue with his logic.
The two of them were joined by Brooks, with another round of coffees. Harris read out the inexplicably long list of letters and numbers that made up the web address as Fowler typed. The payment screen came up and Fowler typed his wallet ID and password into the fields.
‘I thought the bitcoin wallet had been tampered with?’ asked Brooks.
‘Yes it had. This is Danny’s account. Turns out he’s something of a George Soros in the world of underground virtual currencies. There’s not really time at the moment to sort out the force’s one, we’ll look into it after this is all done.’
The three of them waited a few minutes before, finally, a confirmation message appeared on the screen to say that the payment had been completed. Fowler clicked on the link that appeared.
Appearing tonight – it’s the gangland enforcer who everyone loves to hate. It’s Cramer McAllister. 2 BX entry.
The face of the Host next to the blinking Red Room sign hung on the screen like a creepier version of the old BBC test card.
They stared at it for what seemed like ages, somewhat in disbelief at precisely what they were seeing.
‘This is it,’ said Harris. ‘Looks like that first payment was for the privilege of getting to this point. Hope you’ve got plenty of pocket money in that wallet of yours.’
Fowler grunted a reluctant affirmative.
‘I’ll start checking anything on the system to do with McAllister, see if we’ve got any missing persons files for him as well,’ said Brooks.
‘OK, good job. I’ll let Smith know that we’re in,’ replied Harris. ‘Fowler, can you start setting up the tracking algorithm. I doubt very much that we’ll be able to start any sort of trace until the transmission begins, but best to be ready for when it starts.’
‘Do you think you will be able to track them?’ asked Brooks.
Fowler twirled a pen in each hand and spun around in his chair, arms outstretched.
‘Come on, Grace, this is me we’re talking about. Of course I will.’
STAN AND ERIC looked up from their respective tasks.
‘So bloody well get rid of him,’ said Stan, through the set of pliers he was holding in his mouth.
‘Now,’ reiterated Eric.
‘Right, yes. Shit, shit, shit,’ said Joe, as he dithered around the desk before walking out of the office.
‘Christ, I knew this was a bad idea,’ said Stan. ‘Why did we have to involve a bloody amateur?’
Eric shook his head in agreement. ‘Although we did sort of suggest it.’
The entry buzzer sounded as Joe left the building.
‘Dad, what are you doing here? I thought you and Mum were still in Devon,’ he said, hastily, as his dad slowly got out of the car.
‘We had to come home, her haemorrhoids are playing up something rotten and she refuses to see anyone other than Doctor Southgate,’ replied the old man. ‘Plus, I needed to get a few files to work on over the weekend.’
‘I’ll get them for you,’ replied Joe. ‘It’s the ones on your desk to do with the Conway Precision takeover, right? Great, just a minute.’
‘I can get them myself, I’m not an invalid.’
‘No it’s fine. Actually, whilst you’re out here, perhaps you could take a look at the flowerbeds and lawn. The landscaper’s coming on Monday, so I can let him know if there’s anything you want him to do,’ said Joe, as he ran back into the office.
‘Everything alright, Mister Henderson?’ asked Eric, looking decidedly unconvinced by Joe’s double thumbs up response as he collected the files from the desk before running back out.
But a few moments later, as the saloon drove away from the warehouse, he allowed himself a small sigh of relief.
‘Right, so that takes care of him,’ said Joe, excitedly, trying his best to be part of the team.
‘Shut up, Mister Henderson,’ replied Eric. ‘The rest of our group will be here in a couple of hours, so just sit down and do nothing.’
Those couple of hours seemed like days. With the sun beginning to set behind the line of trees, Joe stood in the yard as a white van emerged around the corner, followed by a pristine black limousine.
The goons emerged from the van and walked over to Joe. Before he could do anything, he felt his arms pressed to the side of his body and a hood placed over his head. He tried to struggle, but it was pointless. His arms were pulled around his back and cuffed. After everything he had been through with these people already, this was the first time that he actually feared for his life. Real, total panic.
‘SO WHAT HAVE WE GOT?’ chewed D.C.I. Smith through a mouthful of lasagne, as they each tucked into their respective plates of food.
‘We’ve made it through the preliminary payment level to what appears to be the main portal to view the show,’ replied Harris. ‘What we expect is, after we’ve stumped up another couple of bitcoins, we’ll have access. Danny has been working on the tracking algorithm, so that any cracks in their firewalls should hopefully show up. Although I would expect them to have the mother of all security systems, since I imagine we aren’t the first people, law up-holders or otherwise, who will have tried to find out who this group are and where they come from.’
‘Excellent. I can’t imagine it will make comfortable viewing, but we need to keep an eye out for any sort of clue, no matter how small,’ said Smith. ‘What have you found out about this Cramer McAllister?’
‘He’s a nasty piece of work,’ explained Brooks. ‘From what I could find, he is some sort of enforcer for an equally nasty bloke named Curtis Slater. He’s well known in the drugs underworld but we’ve never been able to touch him. McAllister has done a fair bit of time, but nothing significant, especially when you consider what he’s been accused of. He must have an exceptionally good lawyer.’
‘Wasn’t there a problem making the payment though?’
‘Yes sir, but we found a work-around,’ replied Harris.
‘It’s Danny’s account,’ interjected Brooks.
‘Right, OK,’ said Smith, rubbing his chin. ‘That’s good then. Like I said, try and keep this low-key as much as you can. We need to make sure that we collect as much information on this as possible, but too many cooks spoil the broth and all that.’
Harris and Brooks looked at each other. ‘Yes indeed, sir. Shall we come and get you once it starts?’ said Harris.
‘No,’ replied Smith, ‘I’ve got a very important engagement this evening that I cannot back out of, Commissioner’s orders. Hearts and minds, you know the kind of thing. Keep me updated, although I’m sure you can handle it,’ he added, as he mopped his mouth with the paper napkin and stood up. He pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and walked out, head bowed, flicking across the screen.
Once she was certain he had left the canteen, Brooks leant into Harris and Fowler. ‘Do you think he had anything to do with the bitcoin wallet? He seems a bit weird.’
‘I can’t believe he would,’ replied Harris. ‘But we’ll look into it after this is all done. Let’s get back there, it’s show time in fifty minutes.’
‘I’ll get some popcorn on the way,’ said Fowler, collecting a donut and walking away.
Harris stood up to leave, but was stopped by Brooks’ hand and sat back down.
‘Pete, you’ve been here nearly all week, you probably haven’t seen Olivia for days. Are you sure you’re up to doing this tonight? Why don’t you go home; we can assign another team to this,’ said Brooks, her face a picture of quiet sympathy.
Harris rubbed the bridge of his nose. He knew she was right, but this was far too important to him.
It was more than just about catching these people, it was about proving to himself that he wasn’t a failure, that he could still cut it.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, looking Brooks square in the eyes. ‘I’ve spoken to Olivia every day. When I arrive home, the first thing I do is lie in her bed and cuddle her. She knows I’m there. She enjoys spending time with her gran.’
‘It’s not the same though,’ replied Brooks. ‘She needs her dad. Anyway, you promised her Legoland this weekend.’
‘I know, that was a bit foolish. After tonight and this weekend I’ll be upgrading that to Disneyland.’
‘Well, as long as you’re sure.’
‘Of course, I’ve always wanted to go to Disneyland. No, I’m sure, I promise,’ replied Harris, although clearly he wasn’t. ‘Are you ready for this?’
‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’
‘PLEASE DON’T HURT ME,’ Joe sobbed. ‘I’ve given you everything you want.’
‘Mister Henderson, calm down,’ said a soft voice. ‘We’re not going to hurt you. This is just a necessary precaution. So, if you would like to take a seat over here, we can do what we need to do and then be out of your hair. By the way, we transferred the fifty bitcoins into your wallet as promised ... Well, what do you say?’
‘What?’ came the muffled response.
‘What do you say?’
‘Thank you?’
‘Exactly,’ replied the man, as Joe felt a light tap on his cheek. ‘Manners cost nothing. Now, if you would just sit here and be quiet, that would be much appreciated.’
Joe was sat down on a chair behind a large black curtain, the opposite side to the bank of computers and television cameras that had hastily been erected during his conversation. The noise in the warehouse wasn’t blocked out completely by the heavy hood, but it was muffled, and he only just about made out the sound of a message arriving on someone’s mobile phone.